


Being Different Year 6- Halfbloods and Horcruxes

by LunaLupin1999



Series: Anne Potter [7]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Autism, Evil Draco Malfoy, F/M, Harry Potter Has a Twin, Horcruxes, Not Canon Compliant - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Ravenclaw, Ravenclaw Pride
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-29
Updated: 2020-08-06
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:42:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 18
Words: 35,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25593721
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LunaLupin1999/pseuds/LunaLupin1999
Summary: Harry and Anne are looking forward to a nice quiet year, apart from a bit of Horcrux hunting all they have to do is do their classwork, and hang out with their friends. But can a 'quiet year' actually exist at Hogwarts?
Relationships: Anne Potter/ Irwin Scamander, Harry Potter/Ginny Weasley, Remus Lupin/Nymphadora Tonks
Series: Anne Potter [7]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1726564
Comments: 3
Kudos: 12





	1. When Is a Hurricane Not a Hurricane?

Anne was sat on her bed reading an old History of Magic book. She was reading about the adventures of Merlin and Morgana, not as mythological as the Muggles seemed to think.

She had been having trouble sleeping for the last couple of weeks since she had been tortured for hours on end. When she did get to sleep, she would have nightmares and she didn’t want to have to keep going to Remus for dreamless sleep. Sometimes she would just drop off in the middle of the day because she was so tired such as at the dinner table last night when she had fallen asleep face first into her plate of pasta. She had been back home for four days and hadn’t slept properly once

It was for this reason why Anne was reading instead of sleeping at two o’clock in the morning. She could hear a faint crying coming from the nursery on the floor below. She pulled on her dressing gown and headed down to the nursery to check on Teddy.

“Anne,” whispered Tonks bumping into her in the corridor, “what are you doing up?”

“Checking on Teddy,” explained Anne, “you go back to sleep you’ve got work in the morning.”

“Are you sure?” asked Tonks as she passed Teddy to Anne. Teddy’s hair was sky blue tonight.

“Yeah I can’t sleep anyway,” she shrugged.

Anne changed Teddy’s nappy and then gave him a bottle of milk from the fridge.

“You want to hear a story?” she asked him.

Anne carried Teddy’s bassinet up to her room and placed it on her bed. She got out her copy of the Muggle book King Arthur and His Knights of The Round Table. Anne had been reading it alongside the magical version of the story. 

Anne told Teddy about the Arthur pulling the sword out of the stone and how he was given the sword Excalibur. 

Teddy eventually drifted off to sleep and Anne got her History of Magic book back out.

Anne yawned widely as she checked her watch, it was six o’clock in the morning, another night without any sleep.

She shut her eyes for a moment and had to fight off the urge to sleep, every time she went to sleep Bellatrix haunted her.

“Anne,” said Remus, “when’s the last time you slept?”

Anne opened her eyes and saw her godfather watching her and Teddy from the doorway.

“Last night,” said Anne.

“I mean properly, not just you falling asleep into your plate of pasta.”

Anne blushed as she pulled on one of her plaits.

“Five nights ago,” she mumbled.

“I’m sorry what was that?” asked Remus sitting down next to her.

“Five nights ago,” Anne admitted.

“For Merlin’s sake!” Remus sighed, “I wish you could have just learnt Occlumency like your brother, if you weren’t so emotional it might have worked.”

“I thought you all said that those lessons were a fiasco?” asked Anne.

“That was partially Harry and partially Severus’ fault,” admitted Remus.

“Want me to get you some dreamless sleep?” he asked knowingly.

Anne smiled at him from behind one of the plaits she had been trying to hide behind.

“I’ll write to Pomfrey,” he said patting her on the back and getting off the bed.

“How is my favourite boy this morning then?” asked Remus as he picked Teddy’s bassinet off of the bed.

“He’s been learning about King Arthur and The Knights of The Round Table haven’t you Teddy?” 

“Ahh! Has he met the beautiful Guinevere yet?”

“Not yet no,” said Anne.

“Well even the legendary Guinevere is not as beautiful as your Mummy,” he said carrying the bassinet down to his and Tonks’ bedroom.

Anne shook her head as she finished off her book on Merlin.

Anne eventually dropped off to sleep reading the final chapter.

“Right that’s it,” said Remus with his arms folded standing at the end of her bed.

“You’re going to get some proper sleep whether you like it or not!”

Remus passed her a vial of dreamless sleep which Anne downed instantly, relieved at the possibility of some unbroken and Bellatrix free sleep.

“Something troubling you Moony,” asked Sirius at the breakfast table, “or has mini Moony been keeping you up all night?”

“No its not Teddy,” Remus sighed, “its Anne.”

“You’ve got to stop worrying about that girl,” sighed Sirius, “so she has a few nightmares.”

“A few nightmares?” shouted Remus.

“She hasn’t slept properly in five days, because she’s being haunted by your cousin!”

“She is pretty terrifying,” nodded Sirius.

“Look I’m sorry Pads,” said Remus as he sat down, “I just wish that for once she could sleep properly without having to take a potion.”

“She’ll be alright Moony,” shrugged Sirius.

“Now then whats my favourite nephew up to today?” asked Sirius pinching Teddy’s cheek.

“I thought I was your favourite nephew?” grumbled Harry with a sulky expression on his face.

“You’re my favourite godson,” assured Sirius.

“Fair enough,” said Harry as he helped himself to some eggs and toast.

“So Pronglset how goes the homework?” chuckled Sirius.

“We had homework!” Harry choked over his breakfast.

“Sirius behave,” muttered Remus, “no Harry, you don’t have any homework, you only just finished your OWLs they’re giving you a few months off.”

Harry glared at Sirius over the breakfast table.

“Hey cheer up Prongslet, if you have no homework that means you can come out for a ride with me on the bike, you’re nearly sixteen, I could teach you to drive it this summer if you want.”

“Woah, are you serious?”

“No I’m Sirius, but yes for once I wasn’t actually joking, I could teach you how to drive it this Summer if you want.”

“Wow!” exclaimed Harry getting up from the table.

“Don’t forget your leather jacket,” called Remus, “or your helmet,” he yelled up the stairs.

“Looks like it’s just you and me today little Teddy,” smiled Remus.

“Do you want to go to Granny’s? Or would you just like a day off?”

Remus decided to introduce his son to J.R.R.Tolkien that day and read him The Hobbit in the sitting room.

Towards the end of the book Anne came back downstairs.

“Hi sweetheart, you feeling any better?”

“Yeah,” Anne muttered; she had her first proper sleep in nearly a week.

She kneeled against the sofa and pulled her knees into her chest so that she could listen to the end of the book.

“You certainly look better,” said Remus, “you going around to the Scamanders tomorrow?”

“Hmmm,” she muttered redoing one of her plaits, tomorrow was Friday when she went around to the Scamanders for arts and crafts day.

“I can’t believe how old Averett and Aislynn are getting,” said Remus.

“They’ll be starting at Hogwarts in only two years.”

“Are they excited?”

“Of course they are, Rolfs been going since before they were born.”

“How is Rolf?”

“He’s good, he loves working for the Ministry, but not in an annoying Percy kind of way,” said Anne, “he just likes working with the creatures.”

“You and Irwin know what you two want to do after school yet?”

“Maybe the Ministry.”

“I thought that Irwin tried starting up a Ministry are Morons campaign last year,” chuckled Remus.

“Only the current Ministry,” said Anne, “he wants to work in the Department for Magical Law Enforcement, decorrupt the Ministry from within.”

“And what about you?”

“Department of Education, I want to make peoples education as worthwhile and enjoyable as possible.”

“So what’s the first thing on the list then?”

“Probably firing Binns,” said Anne after thinking for a moment. “I love the subject, but he bores most of my classmates, probably because he’s a ghost”

“So if there was a different teacher the others might find it more interesting?”

“Harry and Ron fell asleep last year in the middle of a lecture on bloodthirsty goblin rebellions.”

“Fair point,” said Remus bumping Teddy up and down on his knee.

“You’d make a good History of Magic teacher,” said Anne.

“I think I’m going to be a little busy with this little and any siblings he gets.”

“To be fair if I was given the choice between teaching and looking after an adorable baby, I would always choose the baby.”

“They are cute aren’t they,” said Remus as Teddy blew a little spit bubble.

“Harry’s thinking of becoming an Auror.”

“Well that’s a turn up for the books, he’s only been preparing himself for killing the most evil wizard in the world for the last five years of his life, if that doesn’t qualify him what does?”

There wasn’t an order meeting that night, so Grimmauld Place was relatively quiet.

“How was work today Dora?”

“I had to go and try and stop some deatheaters from causing havoc in the West Country.”

“What did they tell the Muggles?” asked Julian as he ate his apple pie.

“Freak hurricane.”

“Ouch,” muttered Sirius, “that must have been ugly.”

“Where there any casualties Dora?”

“A few muggles, the main damage was property damage though.”

“At least you’re ok,” said Harry.

“Fucking deatheaters,” muttered Sirius.

“Language!” scolded Remus.

“We’re not that young,” protested Harry.

“No but he is,” said Anne as Teddy grabbed hold of her hand.

After dinner Anne went up to listen to her favourite Seekers record.

She was lying on top of her bed in the middle of the opening song I’ll Never Find Another You when Julian came in.

“What is it with you and this group? I get why like Muggle music, but this lot?” he said indicating the record player.

“They make me happy,” Anne shrugged.

“Fair enough,” said Julian.

“Anne?”

“Hmmm?” she asked opening her eyes slightly. She had been stroking her kitten Diana who had just hopped onto the bed.

“You know how the deatheaters are causing mayhem?”

“How can I miss it,” she groaned.

“You know how I’ve always said that I don’t get on with my stepdad?”

“Yeah?” said Anne sitting up slightly.

“Julian, do you think your stepdad’s a deatheater?” asked Anne.

“I don’t know,” muttered Julian, “all I do know is that he always seemed a bit dodgy to me.”

“So you’ve got no proof?” asked Anne.

“Anne if I had proof, I’d be talking to the auror in the house, not you,” Julian said with his eyebrows raised.

“Fair enough,” she blushed.

“Julian!” called Anne as Julian turned to leave, “don’t do anything stupid.”

“We’ve got enough Gryffindor’s in this house without me pitching in,” he chuckled as he shut the door.


	2. A Night Away

“Harry you do realise that just because Ginny told you hair looks cool when its windswept, that does not give you any excuse to not wear a helmet on that motorbike.”

“You’re just jealous,” chortled Harry as he pulled on his leather jacket for his motorbike lesson that day.

“You got everything sweetheart?” asked Remus.

Anne was going to be staying the night at the Scamander’s after helping Julian with Arts and Crafts day.

“Yep,” Anne nodded indicating her satchel with a pair of pyjamas, a toothbrush, a change of clothes and couple of books.

“You sure you don’t want some dreamless sleep?”

“I don’t think Anne and Irwin will be sleeping much Remus,” chuckled Tonks.

“And what do you mean by that?” asked Sirius whipping his head around.

“Nothing,” muttered Remus and Tonks smirking.

“Just don’t forget to use the protection spells in that book I gave you,” said Tonks in a stage whisper.

Anne blushed as she pulled at one of her plaits.

“Just ignore them, have a nice time darling see you tomorrow.”

“Don’t forget to feed Diana,” Anne said as she headed over to the flu.

“Kreacher has put it on his list,” said Kreacher.

“Thank you Kreacher, see you all tomorrow then.”

Anne and Julian walked over the fire in the kitchen and flued over to Scamander Hollow.

“Anne!” yelled Averett running over to greet her.

“Woah,” said Anne giving him a hug, “before you know it you’ll be taller than me!”

“That’s a surprise to no one,” muttered Rolf who was writing up a report for the ministry.

“Why is that not a surprise?” she asked glaring at Rolf.

“Well for a start, the Scamander family in general are taller than average, and secondly you’re a short arse.”

“Watch it Rolf,” said Irwin turning his wand on his brother, “that’s your girlfriend you’re calling short.”

“Aww now come on little bro, you’ve got to realise your girlfriends short, she has to stand on her tiptoes just to kiss you!”

“Calm down boys!” said Landon standing between his two sons.

“There’s enough fighting going on at the moment without turning on each other!”

“Look I’ve got to get to work,” chuckled Rolf putting his wand away, “see you tonight little bro!”

“Ok gang, who wants to do some arts and crafts?” asked Julian.

They went through to the kitchen where there were large amounts of strips of coloured card paper which had slits cut into them.

“Right, today we are going to learn paper weaving.”

Averett turned up his nose slightly.

“Averett yesterday did we or did we not spend the afternoon playing with your Grandpa’s creatures?”

“Yes.”

“Well you like animals which is why we did that but your sister like art which is why ever Friday we do arts and crafts.”

“Fine,” grumbled Averett.

Even though Averett was reluctant he actually ended up enjoying it, by the end of the afternoon they had mastered paper weaving.

“Julian?” asked Aislynn as she weaved some pink and purple strips of card together.

“Yeah?”

“Can we do origami next week?”

“Of course but why origami?”

“Well Averett like animals, maybe he could learn how to make some of those out of card.”

“That’s a great idea Aislynn!” said Anne.

“Yep, you get to do your art and Averett won’t moan,” said Irwin.

“I should get home,” said Julian grabbing his cloak, “there’s an Order meeting tonight.”

“See you guys on Monday!” he called before fluing back to Grimmauld Place.

Rolf came home from the work not long after that with a huge stack of paperwork.

“That’s a lot of paperwork you’ve got there Rolf,” said Irwin as he helped his brother put it on the kitchen cabinet.

“Yeah well I have to catch up on my case files over the weekend,” Rolf groaned.

“This is why,” chuckled Newt, “I eventually left the Ministry and went freelance.”

“Too much paperwork?” asked Rolf.

“I thought it was because you didn’t like the Ministry?” asked Irwin.

“Ehh a bit of both,” shrugged Newt as he sat down for dinner. 

The family all sat down for dinner, unfortunately Irwin’s grandmother Tina had died eight months ago so there was one less person than there had been before at the dinner table.

Gwendoline had made a chicken, leek and bacon pasta bake which she served with peas. This was followed by a large dish of hot apple crumble served with vanilla ice cream.

“Anne,” said Aislynn after dinner, “do you want to see my room?”

“Anne saw your room last Summer,” pointed out Irwin.

“That was my old room, I have a grown-up room now,” Aislynn beamed.

“Aislynn sweetheart,” said Gwendoline gently, “don’t you think that Anne wants to spend some time with Irwin?”

“Irwin gets to see Anne all year, I hardly ever get to see her!” Aislynn sulked.

“Tell you what Aislynn, how about I come see your new room and then I came spend some time with Irwin later?”

“And this is why you should have been a Hufflepuff,” muttered Rolf, as Anne and Aislynn left the table, “you’re just too nice to say no.”

Aislynn pulled Anne up to her new room by the wrist.

Averett and Aislynn had recently redecorated their bedrooms. They passed Averett’s room on the way past, the walls in Averett’s room were full of animal enclosures and tanks. He had all kinds of animals, magical and muggle, he had a baby owl which had been orphaned and had made a nest at the top of his wardrobe, a grindylow in a tank and a snake. Most of the really impressive animals were kept in basement where instead of a regular basement there was a full of magical menagerie.

Aislynn’s room was very different. The ceiling was enchanted to look like the sky outside so she could count the stars at night and have natural light during the day. There where long strips of different shades of pink floaty material over the doorway, which made a kind of curtain. There was a small double bed with light pink sheets on one side of the room, and a desk and chair by the window looking out the window so she could do her art. The wall over her bed and desk had a double row of bookshelves for all of Aislynn’s books. One of the other walls was also covered in strips of light pink floaty material which reached down to the floor, when you pulled aside the material there was a built-in wardrobe which took up the whole wall. The other two walls were covered in Aislynn’s paintings and drawings, the picture in pride of place was one that Aislynn had drawn a few weeks before Tina had died of Aislynn and her grandmother.

“I’ve got to admit Aislynn,” said Anne looking around, “this is a great room!”

“Thanks,” beamed Aislynn, “Mum did the ceiling and Dad built the wardrobe and put up the shelves but other than that I did this on my own.”

“It’s gorgeous,” said Anne looking at one of the strips of pink material hanging over the door.

“So you still want to be a Ravenclaw?” said Anne as she brushed out Aislynn’s hair.

“Of course,” said Aislynn, “as you can I’m all sorted for the creativity side.”

“What about Averett?”

“He can’t decide being a Gryffindor and a Hufflepuff.”

“He’s still got two years to think it over.”

Anne braided the roots of Aislynn’s jet black hair into two bunchies.

“Anne, you want to do some homework?” asked Irwin after a while.

“You can do homework anytime Irwin, I want to spend some time with Anne, I haven’t seen her in ages,” she moaned.

“Aish Anne’s been in here for other an hour, she’s done your hair and heard all about your new room,” Irwin pointed out.

Aislynn was still pouting.

“Aislynn,” said Irwin, “you want to be a Ravenclaw right?”

“Yeah,” Aislynn nodded.

“And Ravenclaws……”

“Don’t leave their homework to the last minute,” Aislynn finished frowning slightly.

“Correct my little flower fairy,” he said kissing her on the top of the head.

“You should go do your homework, it’s important,” said Aislynn, after Anne had tucked her into bed.

“Irwin,” whispered Anne once they were in the corridor, “we don’t have any homework this Summer.”

“I’m not going to tell those two that,” chuckled Irwin as they reached his room, “homework’s the best excuse I’ve got when I want to be alone.”

“Like right now,” he said admiring his beautiful girlfriend once they had shut the door.

“Irwin,” muttered Anne as Irwin stroked her hair, “your parents will hear us.”

“Muffliato!” cast Irwin at his door, “not anymore!”

Anne and Irwin both sat down on Irwin’s double bed and started to make out, eventually they both took off their shirts and lay down on the bed as they continued to kiss. After a while Irwin began to fiddle with the clasp on Anne’s bra and managed to undo it. They usually didn’t get this far as they had to share a dormitory with their friends at school, so they had to be careful.

“Annie,” muttered Irwin, “do you want to….”

Anne shook her head. She knew that Anthony and Persephone had had sex on Valentine’s day, and Harry had borrowed her book from Tonks to figure out the protection charms for when he was ready to have it with Ginny.

“You know that I love you Irwin but….”

“You want to wait until marriage?” Irwin finished.

“Yeah,” she muttered. Her and Irwin had been going out for nearly three years and she loved him so much, but she still wanted to wait until she got married.

“I get that,” said Irwin, “and that’s fine.”

They kissed for a while longer, Anne then checked her watch.

“Irwin, it’s nearly eleven o’clock!” she stuttered, “what are your parents going to think?”

“That you’re staying in here with me,” shrugged Irwin.

“I mean I don’t mind but.”

“Firstly, your bags already in here, I brought in earlier, secondly my parents know you’re in here that was the whole plan.”

“Then why is there a bed made up in my old room?” asked Anne confused.

“It’s a rouse for Averett and Aislynn,” he smirked, “to make them think we’ve been sleeping in separate beds.”

Anne raised her eyebrows at him.

“Don’t look at me like that, it was Rolfs idea,” he said raising his hands in the air.

“We should get some sleep,” she chuckled as she got out her pyjamas.

They both got changed and then got into bed.

Anne and Irwin fell asleep almost instantly as it was nearly midnight.

“Ah Miss Potter,” trilled Umbridge pulling out her wand, “back to learn another lesson?”

“I don’t understand….” Anne stuttered.

“I’m going to try and take the freak out of you,” she said smiling.

“But I’m not a freak!” she stuttered.

“Ahh, but that’s where you’re wrong ittle Annie!” said Bellatrix coming into the room.

“What, what are you doing here?”

“To remind you that you’re a freak who doesn’t deserve to be loved,” said Bellatrix pulling out her wand.

Both Umbridge and Bellatrix pointed their wands directly at Anne.

“Crucio!!” they called in unison.

Her body was shot with pain and she screamed in agony

“Annie!”

“Crucio!!” they called again.

“Annie wake up!”

“What?” asked Anne looking around confused.

She wasn’t in Umbridge’s office, she was in Irwin’s bedroom in her pyjamas.

“You ok Annie?” he asked brushing her stray hair off of her sweaty face.

“I think so,” she muttered.

“What was it this time? Quirrell, Greyback, Tom, Umbridge or Bellatrix?”

“Umbridge and Bellatrix, they were both torturing me,” said Anne.

“Yikes,” flinched Irwin, “even one of those would be enough for anyone.”

“You want to try and get some more sleep?” asked Irwin pulling her in close.

“Hmm,” she muttered feeling much safer in Irwin’s arms.

Irwin lit a candle on his bedside table so that Anne wouldn’t be scared and pulled her in close. Within a few minutes they were both fast asleep and Anne didn’t have another nightmare that night.


	3. Helping With Staff Recruitment

“Annie, you need to wake up,” said Irwin nudging her slightly.

“Hmmm?” she muttered.

“It’s nearly twelve o’clock, you’re meant to be going home.”

“Twelve o’clock!” she shouted, “why didn’t you wake me up five hours ago?”

“Because my auburn goddess is even more beautiful when she’s asleep,” said Irwin giving her a kiss.

“I only waked you up now because you’re meant to be going home.”

“Merlin,” muttered Anne jumping out of bed to get dressed.

Irwin chuckled slightly as he packed Anne’s bag whilst she brushed her teeth and redid her hair.

“Anne?” asked Aislynn when she came downstairs.

“Hmmm?”

“How come your bed wasn’t slept in last night?”

The adults around the table all looked at each other all unsure what to answer, Rolf was trying to not laugh as he did him paperwork at the kitchen table.

“I wasn’t tired,” she shrugged.

“Yeah we stayed up all night reading,” nodded Irwin.

Averett and Aislynn looked at them suspiciously but were soon distracted when Gwendoline brought out the pudding.

“So how was Irwin’s?” smirked Julian when she got home, “get much sleep?”

“I did actually,” said Anne taking her bag up to her room.

“She does look much more well rested,” muttered Tonks who was in the middle of feeding Teddy.

“Anne,” said Remus running up to Anne’s room remembering something, “Dumbledore’s coming around tonight, he has something he needs to talk to us all about.”

“Couldn’t we just say that I’m still at the Scamander’s whilst I hide in my room?” Anne sighed. 

She wasn’t Dumbledore’s biggest fan right now; he had spent the whole last year ignoring her and Harry and had only showed up when Anne had already been tortured.

“Anne,” smiled Remus, “is that really the mature thing to do?”

“Who ever said I wanted to be mature?” asked Anne.

Remus gave her a significant look.

“Alright fine,” Anne said reluctantly, “but if I get fed up with him, I’m leaving the room and going up to my room.” 

“Fair enough,” said Remus laughing slightly, holding his hand out for Anne to shake.

Anne went up to her room to get her vintage music fix before Dumbledore polled up.

“Seriously Anne, what is it with you and this group!” exclaimed Julian coming in.

Anne opened her eyes and glared at him.

“The Seekers make me happy,” she reminded him.

“Well they make me sick,” he grinned.

“Get out,” she said abruptly pointing at her door.

“I mean I get why you guys like Monty Python because they’re legendary. But the Seekers?”

“Get out!” she screamed shoving him towards the door and closing it behind him.

“Watch out everyone, red alert upcoming!” Julian shouted down the stairs from the corridor.

“Muffliato,” Anne growled closing her bedroom door.

The thing that annoyed her most was that Julian was kind of right, her period was coming up. She hated brothers and since Julian had moved in two years ago, she basically had two of them.

She only managed to get all the way through one record when there was a knocking on the door.

“Come in!” she called turning the record off.

“Hey sweetheart,” said Remus, “its time for dinner, Dumbledore will be around afterwards.”

Anne groaned slightly.

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered.

“Kreacher and Dobby made pizza,” he said.

“Chicken and pesto?”

“Of course,” he grinned.

“Red peppers and sun-dried tomatoes?”

“What else do you put on a chicken and pesto pizza?”

“Oh alright,” said Anne opening her eyes and getting off the bed.

“So how much longer is the ticking time-bomb till code red arrives?” asked Harry as Anne sat down at the table.

“Oi,” said Julian giving him a thump, “don’t steal my jokes!”

“Oi,” said Sirius glaring at both of them, “don’t upset the ladies on the lead up to code red, they can get pretty riled up.”

“If one more person mentions code red at this table, they will be getting a lot more than a thump,” said Tonks.

“What’s code red?” asked Dobby.

“For Merlin’s sake,” muttered Anne banging her head against the table repeatedly. 

“Ok new family rule,” said Remus, “no discussion of code red at the dinner table.”

The family ate their pizzas, everyone had their favourite toppings, Anne for example had chicken and pesto whilst Remus and Harry both had meat feast and Tonks had ham and pineapple.

After a quick pudding of fresh fruit salad, they cleared the table before Dumbledore arrived.

“What is my favourite flavour of jam?” asked Dumbledore once he had arrived.

“Raspberry,” answered Remus.

“Who taught me how to cast a Patronus?” asked Remus.

“Minerva McGonagall.”

“We’re good,” said Remus as they both put their wands away.

“What’s happened Albus?” asked Sirius as he saw Dumbledore’s sombre expression.

“Well firstly Emmeline is dead,” said Dumbledore.

“Emmie?” asked Remus in a voice barley above a whisper.

Dumbledore nodded slowly.

“When did this happen?” asked Sirius.

“They found the body this morning, from the looks of her she put up a good fight!”

“Kreacher,” said Sirius, “can you get out some firewhisky and glasses?”

They poured out glasses of firewhisky for everyone except Kreacher and Dobby who got given butterbeer.

“To Emmeline,” said Dumbledore raising his glass.

“To Emmeline,” they all repeated raising their glasses.

The firewhisky burnt on the way down Anne’s throat, it was not a sensation she enjoyed or hoped to enjoy anytime soon.

“Professor?” said Anne, “you said you came about more than one thing?”

“Correct Anne, well I do bring some good news, I have found and destroyed another Horcrux,” Dumbledore said placing a battered old ring with a crack in the middle of the stone.

“Woah,” said Harry reaching to pick it up and examine it.

“No Harry,” said Dumbledore blocking him with a half-blackened hand.

“Albus what happened to your hand?” asked Tonks suspiciously.

Dumbledore tried to hide his hand beneath his robes.

“The Horcrux?” asked Sirius.

“Yes,” muttered Dumbledore, “I’m afraid so.”

“Has the curse been removed?” asked Tonks.

“Yes it has,” said Dumbledore.

“So how many Horcruxes we got left then?” muttered Harry.

“Three.”

“Ok then, four down three to go,” said Sirius.

“Anything else you needed Albus?” asked Sirius.

“I need Harry and Anne here to help me with something,” said Dumbledore.

“Do you two remember Horace Slughorn?”

“How could we ever forget old Sluggy?” chuckled Sirius.

“Who’s Slughorn?” asked Julian.

“The potions teacher and head of Slytherin before Severus,” said Remus.

“What do you need Slughorn for?” asked Tonks.

“We need a new potions teacher,” said Dumbledore.

“What about Snivelus?” asked Sirius.

Remus glared at him.

“Sorry Severus,” Sirius corrected himself.

“Severus is going to be teaching Defence this year,” said Dumbledore.

Sirius’ mouth dropped open and Julian had to close it shut for him.

“Why do you need me and Anne though?”

“You may be able to help um er persuade him,” said Dumbledore.

“Are you seriously recruiting our kids to help with your staffing problems?” asked Sirius.

“We need Horace Sirius and this might work.”

“Fine,” grumbled Sirius, “just don’t bring them back too late.”

Dumbledore, Harry and Anne all walked out to the front doorstep and side-apparated to where Slughorn was living.

“This is a muggle village sir,” said Harry looking at the village clock tower which said it was a quarter to eight.

“I am well aware of that Harry,” said Dumbledore cheerfully as they started to walk towards one of the houses.

Dumbledore walked up to one of the houses, there were no lights on and there was no car parked outside.

He knocked but there was no answer, he opened the door anyway and poked his head around the door.

“Wands out,” Dumbledore muttered.

Harry pulled his wand out from his jeans pocket and Anne from her jacket.

“What the hell?” muttered Harry as they walked into the house.

There was blood on the walls, shattered glass everywhere, books scattered around the room chaotically, furniture overturned. There had clearly been a duel here and it hadn’t ended well for the occupant.

“I think we’re a little bit late sir,” whispered Anne, shaking slightly as she worried that there might still be some deatheaters hanging around.

“I wouldn’t be so sure of that,” smiled Dumbledore, as he touched the blood on the walls.

Dumbledore prodded a plump fluffy armchair with his wand.

“Good evening Horace,” said Dumbledore chuckling slightly.

The squashy armchair slowly turned into an equally plump and squat elderly wizard in a pair of purple striped pyjamas.

“What gave it away?” he groaned.

“Dragon’s blood,” said Dumbledore smiling slightly.

“Ah yes of course,” muttered Slughorn, “it’s a pity too, that was the last I had left.”

“Perhaps I could save it?” said Slughorn walking over to the where the blood was on the walls.

“I wouldn’t recommend it sir,” said Anne, “it’s far too dusty.”

“And how young lady can you tell that?”

“You can see the specks of dust within the blood even when it’s in on the wall, it’s also slightly discoloured.”

“How is the bright young lady you have brought with you Albus?”

“This is Anne Potter, and of course her brother Harry,” he said indicating Harry who had been trying to right some of the furniture.

“Merlin’s beard,” exclaimed Slughorn looking from Anne to Harry and back again, “I’m surprised I didn’t realise earlier; they look exactly like them!”

“You knew Mum and Dad?” asked Harry.

“Of course,” beamed Slughorn smugly “your mother Lily was one of my best students.”

“Horace, do you think we should return this house to its proper state before its rightful owners return?” asked Dumbledore.

Slughorn and Dumbledore stood back to back with their wands out and started to fix the house.

“Coincidentally who does live here?” asked Dumbledore as they fixed the chandelier.

“A family of muggles, they’re on holiday for a fortnight.”

“I’m afraid the answer is no Albus,” said Slughorn as he fixed the piano.

“I haven’t even asked you yet!” chuckled Dumbledore

“Yes, but we both know why you’re here, joining your staff at the moment is suicide, its practically the same as joining the Order of the Phoenix.”

“You don’t have to join the Order to teach at Hogwarts,” said Harry slightly offended.

“He’s right,” said Anne, “Professor Flitwick’s not in the Order.”

“How is Filius?”

“Better now that his students aren’t being tortured by my Defence teacher.”

“So that’s what she did!” exclaimed Slughorn, “no wonder she’s in trouble at the Ministry.”

“Trouble,” grumbled Harry, “she deserves to be in Azkaban.”

Anne flinched as she covered her hand reminding her that she must learn the difference between dreams and reality.

“Horace do you mind if I use your bathroom?” asked Dumbledore.

“Of course,” shrugged Slughorn.

“Professor,” said Harry, “you do realise if you came back to teaching you wouldn’t have to hide all the time?”

“Hogwarts has got extraordinarily good protection,” muttered Slughorn nodding.

Anne had walked over to the mantlepiece where there was a large number of moving photographs.

One of the photographs showed a slightly younger version of Slughorn who’s hair was not quite as white yet standing with a group of students.

Two of the students at the front of the group looked familiar to Anne, one of them had Anne’s face and the same coloured hair, but Lily’s hair was shorter that Anne’s and she had different coloured eyes. Professor Snape was also in the picture in the front row like Lily but she was clearly trying to avoid his eye and standing at the other end of the row, this must have been after their big argument then. Taking another look at the back of the group, she thought she could even see Frank Longbottom raising his glass at the camera.

Slughorn came over as Anne was looking longingly at the photograph.

“Your mother really was an exceptionally talented witch,” said Slughorn smiling, “we were always good friends.” 

“If you think Mum was powerful you clearly haven’t met my little Sis,” beamed Harry proudly, “top of the class in everything, and she can do wandless magic without even trying.”

Anne hid behind one of her plaits and pulled at the end of it whilst glaring at her brother behind her hair.

“She’s also very shy,” smiled Harry in a stage whisper.

“Can you really do wandless magic?” asked Slughorn enthusiastically.

Anne shrugged.

“She’s been able to for years,” nodded Harry.

“That is extraordinary!” exclaimed Slughorn.

Anne sighed, Dumbledore said Slughorn was essential, it was clear that she was going to have to show Slughorn her powers.

She handed Harry her wand and brushed her hair from in front of her face.

She stood firmly with her feet hip width apart and took a deep breath before placing her hands out in front of her.

She made one of the books from around the room fly towards her and guided it around the room before placing it back where it had come from.

“Extraordinary,” muttered Slughorn.

“You haven’t seen anything yet,” said Harry proudly as he placed a glass of water on the table.

Anne stared at the glass of water and levitated the water out of the glass and manipulated it into a ball in mid-air. She then manipulated it into a stream of water which she sent around the room before forming it in a ball of water. Finally, she made it into a tiny rabbit made out of water which frolicked around the room. She then carefully placed the water back into the glass having not lost a single drop of water.

“Merlin’s beard!” muttered Slughorn, “Merlin’s ruddy beard!”

“How can you even do that,” he stuttered, “and at your age!”

“Daily practise,” admitted Anne taking her wand back from Harry and hiding back behind one of her plaits.

“I expect extraordinary things from you young lady,” said Slughorn, “it must be an honour to teach you.”

“You can teach her if you work at Hogwarts,” Harry pointed out, “and there is nowhere safer in the country.”

Slughorn stammered for a moment before coming to a decision as Dumbledore came back into the room.

“Albus, I’ll do it, but I want a pay rise and a bigger office,” he finally decided.

“See you in September Horace,” beamed Dumbledore holding out his hand for Slughorn to shake.

“Well, that went better than I thought it would,” beamed Dumbledore as they left.

“What do you mean sir?” asked Anne.

“Did you think he wasn’t going to agree to take the position?” asked Harry.

“No I knew he’d take the job,” said Dumbledore, “I just thought it might take longer to persuade him. What did you do?”

“I had Anne show him her superpowers,” Harry chuckled.

Dumbledore looked confused for a moment.

“He means my wandless magic,” Anne explained.

“Ahhh,” Dumbledore sighed.

Dumbledore side apparated home with Harry and Anne and they were soon back at the doorstep of number 12 Grimmauld Place.

“You two should get some sleep, oh and coincidentally you should be receiving your OWL results tomorrow morning.” 

Dumbledore disapparated before they even went in the door.

“Can we both agree, this is the strangest night of the Summer so far?” asked Harry staring at where Dumbledore had just been standing.

Anne nodded slightly before they both went back into the house.


	4. OWL Results

By the time that Harry and Anne got home it was eleven o’clock, Anne left Harry in the kitchen to explain everything to the others whilst Anne headed up to her bedroom.

She got some supplies out of the bathroom cupboard whilst she brushed her teeth, attached a pad to pair of pants, and pulled on a pair of clean pyjamas before collapsing onto the bed and giving into to the inevitable week of hell she was about to have to go through.

She tried to get some sleep but the regular nightmares featuring tonight one with Greyback followed by another where Voldemort killed all her friends and family right in front of her, she knew that it was pointless even trying to sleep.

She got out her book and finished the story of Merlin and Morgana. She checked her clock as she finished the book and saw that it was half past five in the morning, she put the book back away on the shelf and went to pick another book to read eventually deciding to read the book Irwin had bought her on the prophetess Cassandra.

Before she opened her book however she went through to the bathroom to get herself a glass of water so that she could do her daily water show as Harry called it.

She started off by manipulating the water into different shapes as usual before trying something else.

She double checked her watch and saw that it was still early, if she could do this with water what else could she do, she checked out the window and saw that the sun was starting to rise but it was still early so there was no one out yet.

She quickly pulled on a jumper and a pair of jeans and redid her hair before rushing out of the house to the park opposite, leaving a note for Remus explaining where she had gone in case he panicked.

The park was empty but there were a few stray leaves on the ground, she didn’t want to disturb the leaves on the trees because that would be too obvious if there were bare trees in the middle of July.

“Ok here goes,” she muttered closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.

She felt her power surge through her a blast of wind breeze past her.

She used her hands to control the wind and the loose leaves danced her in the breeze, she played with the leaves for a bit before turning to head back inside the house.

As she turned around, she found Remus standing in the doorway to the house holding Teddy, he was beaming wildly and had clearly been watching her for quite a while.

“Keep this up and you might give Dumbledore a run for his money,” chuckled Remus putting an arm around her waist as they headed back into the house.

“I’m not that good,” muttered Anne blushing and staring at her shoes.

“I’m sorry what other fifteen-year-old witches can control the elements, let alone without a wand!”

Anne blushed again as she went down for breakfast.

“So what did you think of old Sluggy?” asked Sirius.

“He was kind of creepy,” muttered Anne.

“And when she says kind of, she means super creepy, not like Umbridge or Quirrell creepy but you know just weird.”

“Yeah he is a bit weird,” nodded Sirius.

“So, Snapes going to be teaching Defence this year?” asked Julian as he spread marmalade on his toast.

“Kreacher does not like Professor Snape,” muttered Kreacher, “he never stays for dinner, Kreacher does not like him.”

“I think he’s just a greasy git,” muttered Tonks as she breast fed Teddy.

“He does need to wash his hair,” agreed Sirius.

“Whether he has greasy hair or not is beside the point,” interjected Remus, “what matters is that he is a good teacher, and that for once the students will get a competent Defence teacher.”

“I am deeply offended by that!” said Sirius, “I was an excellent teacher!”

“You aside Sirius the teachers have been terrible the last five years. You have got to admit, Severus does know his hexes from his jinxes.”

“He should do,” muttered Sirius darkly, “he invented half of them!”

“Why have you always had a problem with Snape?” asked Anne as she picked at her fruit.

“I don’t have a problem with Snivelus,” Sirius started.

The whole table glared at him.

“Look he’s just a creepy git ok?”

“So, no real reason?” asked Harry.

“Are you ok sweetheart?” asked Remus looking at her concernedly across the table.

Anne was looking slightly pale and very tired and had only picked at her breakfast.

“I’m fine,” she muttered, getting up from the table, her period had started last night.

“Code red,” Harry staged whispered snickering.

“What did I say last night?” glared Remus.

“That was only a rule about the dinner table,” pointed out Julian, “nothing about breakfast or lunch.”

“For Merlin’s sake!” muttered Remus hiding his head in his hands.

“If you ever have a sister,” said Tonks talking to Teddy, “you are going to be a much nicer brother than these two.”

“Annie,” said Remus knocking on Anne’s door, “do you want to just be left alone?”

“Obviously!” she yelled.

“Ok,” he muttered, nodding his head before heading back downstairs.

Anne curled up under her duvet pulling her knees up to her chest and read her book by the wand light. She was joined by her kneazle Diana who settled in next to her under the duvet.

“Anne!” Harry called excitedly, “Anne get down here!!”

Anne ignored him, for once she just wanted to be left alone.

“Anne!!” added Julian calling up the stairs, “this is really important!!”

“For the love of Merlin,” she muttered crawling out of bed and walking over to the top of the bannisters.

“What is it!” she yelled.

“OWL letters,” said Sirius beaming at her from five floor below showing her an envelope.

“Shit,” she muttered running down the stairs.

The whole family were beaming at her and Harry waiting for them to open their letters.

Anne sat down on the bottom stair and pulled her knees into her chest trying not to hyperventilate.

“It won’t be that bad,” Harry assured her.

Harry ripped open his letter as Sirius passed Anne hers.

Harry read his letter a serious expression on his face.

“How’d you do Harry?” asked Remus gently.

Harry’s face split into a huge grin.

“I passed,” Harry grinned.

Harry passed the letter to Remus.

“You’ve done more than pass Harry, you’ve done great, even got an outstanding in Defence,” said Tonks reading the list.

“Ha suck on that,” crowed Sirius, “Harry got an outstanding!” he said pumping his fist in the air.

“Just to point out I got four outstanding’s,” muttered Julian.

“Also Anne hasn’t opened hers yet,” added Tonks.

“Go on sweetheart, its not going to scream at you.”

Anne took a deep breath and ripped open the envelope.

A piece of parchment came out and she unfolded it.

ORDINARY WIZARDING LEVEL RESULTS

Pass Grades: 

Outstanding (O)

Exceeds Expectations (E)

Acceptable (A)

Fail Grades:

Poor (P)

Dreadful (D)

Troll (T)

ANNE LILY POTTER HAS ACHIEVED:

Astronomy: O

Care of Magical Creatures: O

Charms: O

Defence Against the Dark Arts: O

Divination: O

Herbology: O

History of Magic: O

Potions: O

Transfiguration: O

Anne stared at the piece of parchment in shock. She read it through three times, surely there must have been some mistake.

“How’d you do Kiddo?” asked Sirius nervously not wanting Anne to start screaming at people again.

Anne silently passed him the parchment.

“Fucking hell,” he stuttered looking at the parchment, “our kids a genius.”

Remus took the parchment from Harry and his eyes lit up with joy.

“Well done Anne,” he grinned, “knew you had it in you.”

“There’s been a mistake, right?” Anne stuttered.

“I doubt it,” said Harry looking at her results, “you’ve been studying for these exams since at least third year.”

“Hey Tonks, are these grades good enough to start the rights NEWTs for auror training?”

“You should be alright, we’ll have to write to Slughorn to check about the potions grade though,” she said scanning the parchment.

“Can I go around to the Weasleys, I want to celebrate with Ron.”

“Anything you want Prongslet,” beamed Sirius.

“And what does out wonderchild want to do today?” asked Julian.

“Go back to bed,” muttered Anne as she got up to go back to her bedroom.

Anne snuggled back under her duvet with Diana and her book on Cassandra, whilst she thought about which subjects, she wanted to continue for NEWTs. The main problem was which subjects to actually drop as she enjoyed all of them.

There was a knocking at the door.

“Diana, go check there’s no one annoying at the door,” said Anne.

Diana nodded slightly and hopped out of the bed to go and check the door where she started mewing happily, that usually meant it was Remus or Tonks instead of one of her annoying brothers or Sirius.

“Come in,” she called still staying underneath her duvet.

“According to that lot downstairs my auburn locked goddess is the most intelligent child in the world.”

Anne pulled her duvet down and found Irwin beaming at her.

“Irwin!!” she screamed throwing herself in for a hug.

“How’d you do?” she asked as Irwin hugged her.

“Not quite as good as you,” admitted Irwin, “six O’s and three E’s.”

“That’s still bloody amazing,” said Anne.

“Yeah but not a perfect score like you.”

“It’s not a competition Irwin,” she chuckled.

“Yes my wise goddess but if it was you would have won. So which subjects are you dropping?”

“I don’t know,” Anne muttered.

“Well I definitely want to keep Ancient Runes and Care of Magical Creatures,” said Irwin.

“Obviously History of Magic,” Anne said thinking deeply.

Irwin got out a piece of parchment and started writing things down.

“Well I want to drop Astronomy and Transfiguration,” said Irwin writing that down.

“Do I actually have to drop any?” asked Anne.

“You want to take nine NEWT’s?” exclaimed Irwin, “are you mad?”

“Maybe I could drop Care of Magical Creatures,” she considered.

“So I take seven, and you take eight, and we have two years of hell,” groaned Irwin.

“It won’t be that bad,” Anne assured him.

“At least I’ll still get my favourite part of the day,” Irwin beamed, “making out with you in the Common Room before anyone else is awake.”

“Speaking of which,” he whispered drawing her in close again.

“Just remember code red,” Anne reminded him.

“We can have plenty of fun without you taking your jeans off,” Irwin muttered pulling her in for a deep kiss.

Once Anne and Irwin had kissed for a while, they headed downstairs to watch some Michael Palin, Remus had recorded Around the World in Eighty Days and Pole to Pole for them.

“Michael’s so nice,” murmured Anne as Michael Palin took a tour of Venice from a rubbish boat helping collect the bins.

“True,” muttered Irwin putting his arm around his waist, “but can Michael do this?”

He pulled Anne in for another kiss.

“No he can’t,” blushed Anne, “but you’re not supposed to interrupt Michael Palin!”

“Sorry,” said Irwin still beaming.

When they were about half way through the ten hours of Around the World in Eighty Days, Tonks came in to the sitting room to talk to them.

“Ok you wonderful geniuses, get your clothes on we’ve got people coming round.”

“We’ve already got our clothes on!” pointed out Irwin.

“And I thought there was an Order meeting tonight,” said Anne.

“Yes,” admitted Tonks, “but they’ll all be gone by eight o’clock, and then we are celebrating!”

“Why?” asked Anne and Irwin.

“Because you two,” said Sirius ruffling their hair, “as well as Harry and Ron have passed your OWLs so we’re having a huge party.”

“But its only four o’clock,” said Irwin confused.

“Yeah but we’ve got to set up,” pointed out Sirius, “you can watch the Palinster anytime, now scoot!”

“Could you two watch Teddy,” said Remus, “we need to set up for the party.”

“Yeah come on Teds,” said Irwin picking him up, “lets go do some reading.”

“I think he likes me,” said Irwin as they headed up the stairs, Teddys hair had just turned the exact same shade of red as Irwin’s.

“So what kind of books does our young Teddy like?”

“Well, he’s only three months old,” pointed out Anne, “so he doesn’t really mind what we read him as long as it’s in a calm voice.”

“We were reading about King Arthur the other day,” said Anne.

“Nah,” said Irwin, “you got any fairy tales?”

“Um,” said Anne browsing the shelves in the library next to her room, “we’ve got Beadle the Bard.”

“Classic,” said Irwin.

“Hans Christian Anderson, Brothers Grimm.”

“Brothers who?” asked Irwin.

“Grimm,” said Anne, “their stories are a bit gruesome.”

“Oh and Winnie the Pooh.”

“What?” asked Irwin picking up Winnie the Pooh.

“It’s a muggle children’s book about stuffed toys that come to life and have adventures.”

“Well that’s weird,” smirked Irwin.

“Oh, and Babbity Rabbity and the Cackling Stump isn’t weird?”

“Look Winnie the Pooh is cute,” said Anne firmly taking it off of the shelf and taking it through to her room.

She fetched Teddy’s favourite teddy bear from his nursery and then put Teddy’s basket down on her bed.

Anne and Irwin lay down on the bed next to Teddy and took it in turns to read to baby Teddy.

“Annie,” asked Irwin once they had finished the book, “you want to have kids?”

“What?” she stuttered, “I’m not even sixteen yet!”

“I meant in a few years,” Irwin chuckled.

“Well I don’t know, probably.”

“Would you want to have kids with me though?”

“Of course, I would,” Anne exclaimed, “I love you.”

Anne faltered for a moment.

“There’s one thing though,” she sighed.

“What?” asked Irwin propping himself up on his elbows.

“I can’t promise you anything,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” he asked confused.

“I can’t settle down, get married, have kids until…”

“You defeat Tom?” he offered.

Anne nodded solemnly.

“Well then in that case if at some point in the future.”

“Once I’ve defeated Tom,” she interjected.

“Yes, once Tom’s dead.”

“And once we’ve graduated,” she added.

“Yes,” chuckled Irwin, “would you want to start a family with me?”

“I’ll have to think about it,” Anne said smiling slightly.

“Oh, come on!” said Irwin hitting her with a pillow.

“Irwin of course I love you,” she laughed.

“Good to know,” said Irwin slowly.

“Now stop trying to fight me with that pillow you’ll wake the baby,” said Anne checking on Teddy.

“Which is why you’ll make the best Mum in the world,” said Irwin kissing her on the head.

Anne and Irwin then read a book on Circe together laying down on Anne’s bed.

“Ok geniuses,” said Harry poking his head around the door not even bothering to knock, “dinner.”

“Have you ever heard of knocking?” asked Anne glaring at him.

“Yeah what if we hadn’t had any clothes on?” asked Irwin.

“Firstly, it’s you two, you always have your clothes on, you’re a pair of prides, secondly there’s a baby in here,” said Harry pointing towards Teddy who was still sleeping in his little basket. 

“Now come on lovebirds, there are loads of people downstairs,” exclaimed Harry before leaving.

“Merlin,” Anne muttered, “can’t we just stay up here?”

“Nope,” grinned Irwin picking Teddy’s basket off the bed.

They headed down to the sitting room where there was a room full of people and huge banner hung up which said, ‘Congratulations Anne, Irwin, Harry and Ron.’

There was also a large buffet table full of food on one side of the room, all the Scamander’s and the whole Weasley family had been invited. Fleur had come with Bill and was wearing her new engagement ring.

“Well done Anne,” beamed Gwendoline pulling her in for a hug.

“Thanks,” Anne muttered nervously before going to get herself a sandwich and some crisps.

“Hey Annie,” said Irwin, “Harry’s going around to the Weasleys for a few days, do you want to finish Michael Palin tonight?”

“Irwin, there’s twenty-five people here, we can’t watch Michael Palin,” she whispered.

“We can once they’re gone!” he pointed out knowingly.

After everyone had eaten then the Weasleys and the Scamander’s went home, they took down all the decorations and put Michael Palin back on.

“Don’t stay up all night,” said Remus kissing Anne on the top of the head before going off to bed.

They were halfway through the first episode when Anne started to drop off on Irwin’s shoulder.

“Um Annie, did you sleep last night?” 

“Er not really,” she muttered.

“Palin can wait till the morning,” said Irwin turning him off.

Anne and Irwin headed up to Anne’s room and pulled on their pyjamas.

Anne fell asleep almost instantly.

She was sitting on a sofa in the Ravenclaw Common Room, she and Irwin were having one of their pre-breakfast make out sessions as the sun slowly rose through the window.

“I love you Annie my beautiful goddess.”

“I love you too,” she beamed.

Anne closed her eyes and he pulled her in for another kiss, but then he wasn’t there.

“Irwin?” Anne called looking around the empty Common Room.

“Irwin!” she screamed.

“It’s too late,” said a teenaged version of Tom coming out from behind a bookcase.

“What?” she stuttered, “what have you done with him?”

Tom smirked at her and then stood aside. Irwin was sprawled on the floor, blood spurting out of his mouth, his eyes were completely blank.

“Irwin,” she yelled running over to his body and shaking it.

“Wake up!!” she screamed.

“Annie,” said Irwin “you’re ok,” he said gently.

“Irwin?” she asked confused.

“Right here Annie,” he soothed as he brushed a stray lock of hair away from face.

“Where are you going?” she panicked as Irwin got up.

“Just turning these on,” he said as he placed Anne’s battery-operated candles on her bedside table.

“You want to get some more sleep?” asked Irwin as he got back into bed and put his arm back around her.

“Hmmm,” she muttered drowsily settling into her pillows as Irwin pulled her in close.

“Irwin,” Remus whispered from the half open door, “I heard shouting, is she ok?”

“Yeah she’s fine,” said Irwin.

“Don’t need any dreamless sleep or anything?”

“No she’s fine look,” whispered Irwin.

Anne had fallen back asleep in his arms.

“How did he do that,” muttered Remus as he went back to bed. Remus had been struggling with Anne’s nightmares for years, but Irwin seemed to have figured it out.


	5. Return to St. Mungos

It turned out in the end that Irwin was one of the only people who could actually get Anne to sleep properly without any potions, she didn’t feel as scared when he was there and felt safer so didn’t have as many nightmares.

This led to Anne visiting the Scamander’s overnight a couple of times a week and Irwin coming around to Grimmauld place a few times a week as well. At least four nights out of a given week Anne and Irwin would spend together.

The Scamander’s went on their annual family camping trip for a week in late July so Anne had to drink a lot of dreamless sleep during that week.

Anne was sat in the kitchen with Kreacher helping him make shortbread biscuits, Anne’s job was to cut them into equal slices and then pierce the dough with a fork to make holes.

Suddenly a head appeared in the fire.

“Is there anyone there?” asked Neville.

“Hi Neville,” said Anne kneeling down to talk to Neville.

“Is it ok if I come through?” asked Neville.

“Sure,” shrugged Anne.

Anne got up and moved away from the fireplace so that Neville had space to get out of the fire.

“Hi Anne,” Neville waved.

“Hey Neville, um Harry’s over at Hermione’s with Ron,” Anne explained.

“No that’s ok, I wanted to talk to you,” said Neville.

“Oh, ok,” said Anne.

Anne and Neville headed up to the sitting room and both sat down.

Neville seemed to be looking nervous and was looking around frantically.

“Is there something wrong Nev?” asked Anne.

Neville sighed slightly giving into the inevitable.

“I need to talk to you about my Mum, my Dad too actually.”

“Why me?” Anne stuttered.

“Well,” Neville struggled, “you remember how last Christmas Mum thought you were Lily?”

“Um yeah,” said Anne. She was hardly going to forget that in a hurry.

“Well, Gran took me to visit them yesterday, Mum seemed to think I was Dad,” he muttered, “she kept calling me Frank.” It was clear that Neville was starting to get close to tears.

“What does this actually mean though?” 

“I don’t know,” Neville said, “its almost as if they’re recovering.”

“Recovering? But how? Why?”

“I don’t know Anne, nobody does, they are the only case like this in the world, most people would kill someone either before or after torturing them into insanity.”

“But the Aurors got there before they could,” Anne sighed.

“I still don’t understand why you want to talk to me about this though.”

“Well, you were tortured by Lestrange last month, it was a pretty close call, if you had been there much longer you probably would have ended up in St. Mungos with Mum and Dad.”

Anne nodded slowly, she hated to think about Bellatrix torturing her but it was a close experience to what Alice and Frank went through.

“Secondly, Mum recognised you , well she thought you were Lily, what if Dad reacts the same way?”

“But why is this happening now?” asked Anne deeply confused.

“I don’t know, Gran asked me to come round to see if you wanted to come to St. Mungos with us today.”

“Um yeah sure, I’ll just to ask Remus.”

Remus was completely fine with Anne visiting the Longbottoms but she headed up to her room to get something before they went to St. Mungos.

“Are you sure you’re alright with this Anne dear?” asked Mrs Longbottom before they went into the ward.

“Yeah anything to help,” said Anne.

“Here goes,” said Neville heaving a deep sigh and going into the ward.

“Hello again Neville, its good to see you again so soon,” beamed a healer.

“We are trying to check whether yesterday was just a fluke or not,” explained Mrs Longbottom.

“Of course,” said the healer as they headed towards the beds.

“How are they today?” asked Neville nervously.

“They’re doing quite well,” nodded the healer, “they both ate their breakfasts without any fuss.”

“Alice, Frank, you’ve got some visitors,” said the healer.

“Frank,” muttered Alice.

“Play along,” whispered Mrs Longbottom encouragingly.

“Um hi Alice,” Neville stuttered, “I brought Lily with me.”

Neville gestured towards Anne to move forwards.

“Lily,” muttered Frank.

Neville and Anne gripped onto each other’s hands, this somehow seemed to be working.

Anne walked over to sit between Frank and Alice’s beds.

Frank took hold of Anne’s hand and looked at her hair.

He pointed at Anne’s hair, Lily didn’t have hair that long and didn’t wear it like that.

“Oh this,” said Anne pulling at one of plaits, “I’ve grown my hair out, I thought I’d try a new style.”

Frank nodded as if in understanding.

“James,” said Frank in a broken voice that sounded as though it hadn’t been used in years, “James.”

“Where’s James?” asked Alice.

“James is busy with Sirius,” explained Anne, “they’re out on that flying motorbike of Sirius’ again.”

“Probably getting arrested by the muggle police,” she laughed slightly.

Alice and Frank’s eyes lit up as if remembering something else.

“I’ve brought something with me,” said Anne pulling out a photograph of Alice, Frank and James with Harry, Neville and Anne when they were six months old.

She tried showing the photograph to Frank whilst Neville tried to talk to Alice.

“James,” said Frank pointing at the picture of his best friend who was laughing with Harry on his lap.

“Me,” he continued, pointing at himself who was helping Neville wave his fist at the camera.

“Alice,” he finished looking slightly confused.

“Where’s Alice?” he asked desperately.

Anne looked over to where Neville was sitting with Alice only one bed away.

“She couldn’t come today,” said Anne trying to hold back her sobs.

Frank nodded in understanding and then looked at the photograph again.

“Harry and Anne,” he said pointing to the baby Harry and Anne.

“Neville,” he said pointing at the baby Neville.

“Where’s Nev?” Frank asked desperately again.

“I’m right here Dad,” said Neville coming over to his Dad’s bed.

Frank looked at him confused again.

“Where’s Nev?”

“I’m right here Dad,” said Neville starting to get upset.

“Neville,” said Mrs Longbottom, “I think we’ve done enough for today dear.”

“We’ll come back next week Neville I promise,” said Mrs Longbottom as they left the ward.

They apparated back to the Longbottoms residence.

“You alright Anne dear?” 

“Yeah I’m fine,” stuttered Anne pulling at one of her plaits.

“Dad was calling for me,” Neville was muttering, “but he still didn’t recognise me.”

“These things take time Neville dear,” said Mrs Longbottom putting an arm around her grandson.

“So when did all this start again?” asked Anne.

“When Alice saw you at Christmas.”

“Its almost as if they’re stuck at the point when they lost their minds,” said Mrs Longbottom.

“Then why didn’t they recognise you all when you were first visiting with Neville when he was a baby?”

“I don’t know,” said Mrs Longbottom her head in her hands, she was just so confused.

“Wait,” said Anne a lightbulb going on in her mind, “who tortured Frank and Alice again?”

“The three Lestranges, and Barty Crouch Jr.,” growled Neville.

“Just over a year ago, Barty Crouch Jr. had his soul sucked out by dementors,” Anne said slowly trying to fit the pieces together, “it wasn’t until after that, that they started to recover.”

“Are you telling me if the three Lestranges lose their souls Frank and Alice might get their minds back?” stammered Mrs Longbottom.

“It might not have to be dementors,” said Anne still thinking, “it could have the same effect if they died, the dementors kiss is basically the death of your soul.”

“So just let me clarify,” said Neville still trying to understand, “if the three Lestranges die I might get my parents back?”

“Its only a theory Nev,” Anne explained calmly, “as each of their torturers dies or loses their souls, your parents might come one step closer to recovery.”

“And eventually once they’re all gone,” said Neville excitedly, “my parents might get their minds back?”

Anne nodded.

“I still can’t believe we’re even discussing the possibility of this,” sobbed Mrs. Longbottom, “I lost all hope of Alice and Frank getting their minds back years ago.”

“Never give up hope gran,” said Neville firmly placing his hands on his shoulders, “because when you give up hope.”

“You give up fighting,” finished Mrs Longbottom smiling slightly.

She pulled a handkerchief out of her robe pocket and dried her eyes.

“Why don’t you go show Anne your new wand Neville?” she suggested.

“Nev,” said Anne when they got up to his room, “you ok?”

“I think so yeah,” said Neville sitting down on his bed and playing with his new wand.

“Look Anne just imagine, that after nearly fifteen years, there was even a remote possibility you could have your parents back,” Neville tried to explain.

“That is pretty intense,” sighed Anne.

“Anne thanks for helping me today,” said Neville giving her a hug.

“That’s ok Nev, and don’t worry, those Lestranges will get what’s coming to them,” said Anne threateningly.


	6. A Perfect Birthday

Anne woke up and looked out the window, the sun was just beginning to rise outside the window, it looked like it would be a beautiful day.

“Good morning my beautiful goddess,” said Irwin waking up and stretching widely.

They snuggled in closer together and lay under the covers together for a few minutes. 

Irwin had got back from his annual camping trip yesterday, so he had come to stay the night last night. This was the first proper nights sleep that Anne had had in a week without having taken dreamless sleep first.

“Happy Birthday my wonderful girl,” said Irwin before giving her another kiss.

“Wow,” muttered Anne, “it is my birthday!”

Between worrying about Neville’s parents, and waking up with a tall handsome young man in her bed she had completely forgotten that today was her birthday.

Anne checked her watch, it said it was a quarter to six.

“Do you want to go practise some wandless magic?” she asked.

Irwin shrugged; he had seen Anne make objects fly around the room fifty times before.

They both got dressed quickly, Anne pulled on a light blue floral print summer dress and did her hair in one long plait down her back before pulling on a pair of tan coloured sandals.

She looked out the window and saw that there were already several people in the park, so she couldn’t practise outside today then.

Glass of water trick it was then, she had only started doing this over the summer holidays, so Irwin had never seen this before.

She poured herself a glass of water and placed it down on the kitchen table.

Irwin sat down at the kitchen table and looked at her confused as she handed him her wand.

Kreacher was bustling around the kitchen making the family breakfast.

She levitated the water out of the glass and formed it into a sphere in mid-air. She split it in to two smaller spheres of water and guided one around the room.

“Ok that’s pretty cool,” nodded Irwin.

Then she reformed the one large sphere of water and made a spiralling motion with one of her fingers the water formed into a tight spiral starting at the bottom and eventually turned into a tiny tornado.

“Woah!” exclaimed Irwin, “and that was just from a glass of water?”

“Hmmm,” she nodded as she placed the water back into the glass.

“You are the coolest girlfriend in the whole wide world,” he exclaimed getting up and giving her another kiss.

Anne blushed slightly and she pulled at the end of her plait.

“Have you tried doing this with fire yet?” 

Anne shook her head frantically.

“I am not playing with fire, I am terrified of fire,” she stuttered.

“Oh yeah that’s right,” said Irwin remembering, “that’s why you have battery operated candles instead of real ones.”

“Morning kiddos,” said Sirius as he came into the kitchen.

“Morning Sirius,” said Anne as she sat back down at the table.

“Did you just see our mistress of the elementals at work?” asked Sirius.

“You bet,” nodded Irwin who was still trying to get over how powerful his girlfriend was.

Kreacher served pancakes and sausages for breakfast.

“So what are the birthday girl and boy planning on doing today?” asked Tonks.

“We still need to start watching Pole to Pole,” suggested Irwin.

“We need you two to get out of the house,” Remus pointed out.

“So no Palin then,” muttered Irwin.

“Well then in that case I’m going around to Ron’s,” said Harry as he finished his breakfast and went to go and fetch his jacket.

“Well it’s a nice day,” said Anne, “do you want to go to the park?”

“Sounds great, we could take a picnic,” said Irwin.

“Could you two take Teddy?” asked Tonks.

“We’re going to be busy setting up for tonight.”

“Hey why can’t I take Teddy?” protested Harry, “I’m his godfather!”

“Because last time you took Teddy you tried taking our three month old son for a hamburger and then you and Ron made a harness between your broomsticks and took him flying,” said Remus.

“Remus,” chuckled Sirius, “do you remember when James and I took Harry flying on my bike?”

“Which is why you aren’t allowed to look after teddy alone either,” said Remus, “I want my son to reach six months without falling fifty feet.”

“Fair enough,” muttered Harry pulling on his jacket and fluing over to the Weasley’s.

“Come on Teddy,” said Irwin picking up his little basket and putting him in his pram in the hallway.

Irwin helped Anne lift Teddy’s pram down the stairs outside the house, before Anne took over and pushed the pram to the park across the street.

“Why are people looking at us weirdly?” asked Irwin as they pushed Teddy’s pram through the park.

“Probably because they think we’re underage parents,” muttered Anne trying not to look at all the strangers that were staring at them.

It wasn’t helping that Teddy had changed his hair colour to dark red to match Anne’s so all three of them had red hair.

“Well screw that lot,” glared Irwin.

After a while they stopped and spread out a blanket to sit down on. Anne picked Teddy up from his pram and let him down to play in the grass.

Anne had brought her copy of the story of King Arthur which Anne and Irwin were taking it in turns to read from.

At the moment Irwin was reading about Lancelot, whilst Anne made some daisy chains and watched Teddy playing in the grass.

Anne had just finished making some long daisy chains and redone her hair so that she could plait the flowers into it.

“Annie,” said Irwin as he finished the end of the tale of Lancelot, “its four o’clock, we should head back.”

“Come on Teddy,” said Anne putting him back in his pram, “your Mummy and Daddy will have missed you.”

“So, any idea what’s planned for tonight?” asked Irwin as they started to push the pram back to Grimmauld Place.

“No, Remus and Sirius wanted it to be a surprise.”

“Last year’s party was awesome, there were so many people there, we watched tv all night and into the next day.”

“Yeah the tv was fun but there were too many people there for the first bit,” muttered Anne.

She hated her birthday parties, it was the annual even she dreaded the most all year, she didn’t like parties because of all the people but Harry loved them, so she put up with them for him.

“Come on Teddy,” said Anne as they lifted the pram up the stairs to the house, “let’s get this over with.”

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad Annie,” said Irwin trying to assure her.

Anne gave Irwin a significant look.

“Come on Annie,” he chuckled putting his arm around her as they took Teddy inside.

“Hey guys,” beamed Tonks, “how was your day?”

“Good,” said Irwin, “Teddy tried to catch a butterfly in his fist.”

They took off their jackets and Anne started heading towards the sitting room where the presents were usually kept.

“Um what’s going on?” asked Anne confused.

None of the guests had arrived yet but the banner in the sitting room read Happy Birthday Harry and there was only one pile of presents.

“Why don’t you two drop your things off in Anne’s room,” suggested Remus trying hard to keep a smile off his face as he took Teddy out of his pram.

Anne and Irwin shrugged slightly and headed up the five flights of stairs.

“I know I don’t particularly like parties, but to have one for only Harry seems a bit confusing,” said Anne.

“Look Annie I’m just as confused as you are.”

They had reached the fifth floor and went into Anne’s room to drop off their jackets and shoes.

When they went into the room it wasn’t empty, there were already two people sitting on the bed. Anthony and Persephone were both sat on Anne’s bed, Anthony was looking curiously at the switches on one of Anne’s electric candles as if he had never seen a battery before. Also, for some strange reason, the television from downstairs had been plugged in in her bedroom. 

“Um hi guys,” stuttered Anne, “what are you doing here?”

“We’re here for your birthday party,” beamed Persephone.

“What?”

Persephone took Anne by the hand and took them through to the small library between Anne and Julian’s bedrooms, there was a birthday banner hung up and large pile of birthday presents.

“We tried putting the presents in your room with the weird muggle box thing,” said Anthony.

“Do you mean the television?” asked Irwin.

“Yeah that thing, but there wasn’t space, so we put the presents in here.”

“Is there anyone else coming to this thing?” asked Anne.

“Well Luna’s on holiday in Norway with her Dad,” said Persephone.

“Oh yeah, they’re trying to find a crumple horned snorcack.”

“A what?” asked Anthony.

“Never mind,” said Anne beaming.

“So, Harry is having the usual full on shindig downstairs with dozens of people but we’re just going to hang out and watch tele,” said Persephone.

“Wow,” muttered Anne, “this might just be my best birthday ever!”

It was Anne’s perfect birthday party, she got presents, cake and her three best friends, and of course Michael Palin. They could hear the faint thumping of music from five floors below as Harry and his friends partied the night away. Whilst the Gryffindors partied they watched Michael Palin’s Pole to Pole

“Next year we can watch some Flying Circus,” beamed Anne.

“Why do the Muggle’s have such weird names,” muttered Anthony as they left.


	7. Practise Makes Perfect

“Hey Sis,” said Harry climbing up on the roof of the house.

Anne had been using the skylight in the attic to climb up onto the roof of Grimmauld Place.

Remus had freaked out the first time he had seen her up there a few weeks ago but had then put up some protections on the roof. There was now a protective barrier so if Anne was going to fall off, she would just bounce back instead.

Anne was using her powers up on the roof and making the leaves dance in the wind. As it was nearly September there were starting to be more loose leaves on the ground. The muggles just thought that it was a breeze of wind because as the house was protected from muggle view nobody could see her.

There was a flurry of leaves that flew past as Harry sat down next to her on the roof.

“Wish I could do that,” grumbled Harry.

“I’ve actually been thinking about that,” said Anne as she put the leaves back down and put her hands in her jacket pocket.

“Do we have another theory sister dearest?” asked Harry turning to her in interest. Anne had told him all about her theory about Alice and Frank and Harry had already started plotting the death of the Lestranges.

“I do actually,” Anne nodded, “you know our ‘TwinVision’ as Sirius calls it?”

“How could I forget,” groaned Harry.

“It may be a connection of more than just the mind,” Anne considered, “do you remember when we fought Quirrell?”

“Oh what when we burnt that guys face off? That was too cool to ever forget!”

“Yes well,” said Anne, “we did it by holding hands.”

“Do you think it might work?” asked Harry his face lighting up.

“We never know till we try,” she shrugged holding out a hand for Harry to take.

Harry took a deep breath and took Anne’s hand.

“Ok Harry, clear your mind.”

Harry nodded.

Anne used her free hand to lift some leaves from off of the ground, she then split them into two groups.

“Ok Harry focus now put out your other hand,” she said gently.

Harry looked at her slightly confused before shrugging and nervously put out his hand.

“Ok, now try to move the leaves, they’ll follow the movements of your hand.”

Anne moved her hand in a circle and so did her leaves.

Harry edged his hand slowly to the left and the leaves moved too.

Harry’s mouth opened wide in shock.

“Try and move them in a circle now,” said Anne encouragingly.

Harry and Anne stayed up on the roof for a over an hour.

“That is so cool,” muttered Harry, “we can share powers!”

“It is pretty cool yeah,” said Anne pleased that at least one of her two theory’s had actually worked, if this theory had worked maybe the one about the Longbottoms would work too.

A few days later, Anne was sat on the edge of the pond at the Scamander’s with Irwin, they were having to go back to school the next day so Anne would have to stop practising her wandless magic so much.

The day before, her and Irwin had filled a bathtub with water and tried to manipulate that, it had worked really well but today they were going to try with the pond.

Anne closed her eyes and emptied her mind.

“Here goes,” she muttered holding out her two hands.

She looked towards the water and lifted both her hands and half the water was levitated straight out of the pond. She formed it into a giant sphere of water, before turning it in five smaller balls of water which raced each other around the half full pond.

“I still can’t get over how impressive this is,” said Irwin as he watched her at work.

Anne put the rest of the water back into the pond.

Then she raised her hand again and a horse made of water appeared out of the pond. The water horse ran around the pond a few times before Anne sent it back into the water.

“Bloody hell,” whispered Irwin, “and Harry can do this too?”

“Not as much but a little and only when I help him.”

“That’s still something,” admitted Irwin.

“Come on Annie, the twins want to say goodbye before you go back to school tomorrow,” said Irwin pulling himself off the bank and reaching out a hand to help Anne help.

“Irwin!” pleaded Averett, “can’t you stay?”

“Please!!” begged Aislynn begging onto his legs.

“Woah there,” he chuckled picking up his little sister, “I’m not leaving until tomorrow you know that.”

“Oh yeah,” said Averett cheering up slightly as Irwin put Aislynn back down again.

They then both turned on Anne.

“Anne you can’t go!” said Aislynn as they both clinged onto her legs.

“For Merlin’s sake,” muttered Irwin.

“Ais, Av,” said Anne gently, “you know how important school is.”

“You don’t need school, you already know everything,” cried Averett being close to tears.

“Yeah you do, besides who’s going to be my big sister when you go?”

“Hey what about me?” asked Irwin in mock outrage.

“We have other big brothers,” said Averett, “we’ve got Rolf.”

“And Julian!” added Aislynn.

“Well it’s nice to know that I’m loved,” said Irwin turning around in a huff and starting to head back to the house.

“No Irwin wait!” screamed Aislynn and Averett rushing after him.

Irwin turned back around with a massive beam on his face.

“Come here you little monsters,” he chuckled.

He started attacking them with tickling and Anne was soon pulled into the massive heap of tickling on the ground.

“I have really got to go,” said Anne breathlessly after a few minutes.

“Can you see at Christmas?” asked Aislynn.

“Please!” added Averett.

“We’ll see,” said Anne, “see you tomorrow Irwin.”

Anne flued back to Grimmauld Place where Kreacher was busy preparing hamburgers in the kitchen for their farewell supper before Harry and Anne both headed back to school the next day.

They had their family dinner and then Tonks and Remus had to go on a mission for the Order.

“We’ll be back in the morning,” said Remus giving Anne a hug as he did up his cloak.

“Be careful,” she muttered.

“We promise,” he said putting his hands on her shoulders.

“Look after Teddy for us ok?” asked Tonks, as she passed Teddy to her.

Tonks and Remus both went out on the front step and dissaparated.

“Hey Harry, want one last motorbike ride before heading back to school?”

“Cool!” enthused Harry pulling on his leather jacket.

Julian was around at the Scamander’s hanging out with Rolf.

“I guess it’s just you and me then little Ted isn’t it?” 

Teddy beamed at her and blew a little spit bubble, Teddy’s hair was bright green today.

“You are adorable,” she chuckled.

“Who wants to hear the story of The Tale of the Three Brothers?” said Anne as she put little Teddy down on the bed so she could get out the book.

Anne sat down on the bed and put Teddy on her lap so that she could read to him.

“Are you going to miss your favorite aunty when she goes tomorrow?” asked Anne as they finished the story.

“No answer,” she chuckled, “what a surprise.”

“Well don’t forget, if you ever want a break from the craziness that is the rest of this house, I will always be here for you.”

Anne kissed him lightly on the top of his head before carrying him back down to the nursery and putting him in the cot.

“Sweet dreams little Teddy,” she said as she passed him his favourite teddy bear.

Anne sighed softly before going back up to her room and taking her dreamless sleep potion, this time tomorrow she would be back at Hogwarts.


	8. Last Day Before Homework

Anne woke by being licked all over her face.

“Don’t do that,” she muttered, “that tickles!”

“Meow?” said Diana looking at her curiously before licking her face again.

“Good morning to you Di,” chuckled Anne, “what time is it?”

Anne tickled Diana between the ears whilst she checked the time.

“Seven o’clock,” she sighed, “well then Di, we’d best get packing!”

Anne pulled herself out of bed and started to pack her books for the coming year, it was going to be a long one, between eight NEWTs, prefect duties, and trying to stop Voldemort and his deatheaters from invading the school, she would hardly have any time for Irwin.

She took a bath and washed her hair before drying it with the charm that Padma had found in fourth year.

She pulled on her school skirt, shirt and jumper and her grey school tights, and then put her robes on top of that. She did up her Ravenclaw tie and then attached her Prefect badge onto her robes.

She brushed out her hair and tied it in the two regular plaits as usual before attaching her hair ribbons which turned bronze to bring out the bronze on her robes, tie and Prefect badge.

“Ok Di, we ready for another year at school?”

“Meow!” said Diana, leaping down from the bed and into her little cat basket.

Anne chuckled slightly as she took her trunk down the stairs before going back down with Diana’s cat basket.

“Morning everyone,” said Sirius beaming as he sat down at the table.

“What’s so good about it?” growled Harry over his bowl of porridge. His summer of fun with broomstick flying, motorbike lessons and no homework had finally come to an end.

Tonks and Remus were both nursing cups of coffee and looked exhausted. 

“How was the mission?” asked Anne.

“Well we made it back alive,” shrugged Tonks.

“What happened?” asked Harry.

“We were trying to do some recruitment for the Order,” sighed Remus, “we got ambushed by Deatheaters.”

“Rodolphus and Rabastan Lestrange,” muttered Tonks.

“Not those idiots!” said Sirius.

“Fortunately, everyone made it out safe,” said Tonks, “we then took the Lestranges into the ministry, they should be on their way back to Azkaban by now.”

“It’s pity you didn’t kill them when you had the chance,” growled Harry.

“Alice and Frank could have got on step closer to getting their minds back,” said Sirius.

“Merlin,” muttered Remus, “I’d forgotten all about that.”

“We were so worried about getting everyone out safely that we forgot about Anne’s theory,” said Tonks.

“Look all that matters is that you got back home safely,” said Anne, “and that nobody got hurt.”

“Thanks sweetheart,” said Remus smiling slightly.

“We need to get a move on,” said Sirius checking the time, it was already half past nine.

The others headed upstairs to go and get ready to catch the train.

“Want some help with your trunk Harry?” asked Anne as Harry tried to manage his messy hair.

“Thanks, little Sis,” beamed Harry as Anne placed a feather light charm on the trunk.

“Ok gang,” said Sirius, “we got everything?”

“Two school trunks, one owl cage, one cat carrier and one firebolt,” nodded Anne.

“Come on then lets get a move on,” said Sirius.

Anne helped Tonks lift Teddy’s pram down the stairs leading up to the house. 

Remus and Tonks carried Anne’s trunk and Diana, whilst Harry and Sirius carried Harry’s trunk and Hedwig. There was feather light charms on the two trunks but it made more sense to the muggles if there was two people carrying each trunk. Anne meanwhile pushed Teddy in his pram.

They could have taken the car, but firstly they wouldn’t have fit all of them along with Teddy’s car seat, and the half an hour walk to the train station, meant they all got another half an hour before Harry and Anne went back to school.

“Ok Teddy,” said Anne, “ready to see something magical?”

Anne walked firmly towards the barriers between platform nine and ten, and they were soon on platform nine and three quarters.

“Hey Annie,” beamed Irwin, giving her a quick kiss.

“Hi Irwin,” said Anne.

“Is Teddy coming to Hogwarts then?” asked Irwin leaning down to talk to Teddy in his pram.

Anne picked him up out of his pram, Teddy’s hair was indigo today and he was wearing a bright red romper suit.

“No, Teddy’s too young to go to school,” said Anne bumping him on her hip.

“That’s a shame you know,” said Irwin earnestly, “he’s adorable.”

“Looks like you two have been busy,” chuckled Anthony looking from Anne and Irwin to baby Teddy.

“Anthony, you’ve met Teddy,” said Irwin, “you know that this is Remus and Tonks’ baby.”

“I know that, but you two make cute parents,” said Anthony.

“Bye bye Teddy,” said Anne kissing him on the top of the head before passing him back to Tonks. 

Remus had already loaded her trunk and cat basket into a trunk, Anne had to go to a Prefect meeting.

“We’ll see you at Christmas sweetheart,” said Remus giving her a bone crushing hug.

“Knock their socks off kiddo,” said Sirius patting her on the back before she headed off to the Prefect compartment.

“So,” said Anthony as they headed towards the compartment together, “other than babysitting what else did you get up to this Summer?”

“Well helped Dumbledore with staff recruitment,” said Anne, “and talked to Neville’s parents.”

“You mean the mentally deranged ones?” asked Anthony confused.

“Yep,” nodded Anne.

“Have I ever told you that you’re weird?”

“Many times,” she muttered, “but I’m not denying it.”

“Who wants to be normal anyway?”

“Hi Anthony, Anne,” beamed Hannah, “had good Summers?”

“Yeah spent a lot of time with Sephie, she went to Greece with her parents to visit her family and I went with them.”

“How about you Anne?” asked Ernie

“I spent a lot of time round at Irwin’s, wish we had had some homework though.”

“You wanted homework?” asked Ernie, “we spent over a year studying for those exams.”

“Yeah I know,” shrugged Anne.

“So how many NEWTs you guys going to take?” asked Hannah.

“Five,” said Ernie.

“Four,” shrugged Hannah.

“Eight,” said Anne and Anthony simultaneously.

“Are you too mad!” exclaimed Ernie.

“Eight NEWTs and Prefect duties?” asked Hannah.

“Not to mention keeping up a relationship,” said Ernie.

“To be honest,” said Anne, “I didn’t know which ones to drop.”

“Also,” added Anthony, “the busier we are, the less time we have to worry about You Know Who and his supporters.”

The Head girl and boy gave their welcome speech, before the prefects divided and conquered, one carriage a couple.

Anthony and Anne patrolled their carriage of the train before going to go and find their friends.

“Welcome to the love compartment!” beamed Irwin as they arrived.

“Shut up,” glared Anthony as he sat down next to Persephone.

“Hi Justin, Lisa,” said Anne as she sat down opposite Irwin next to Anthony.

Anne stretched out her legs and placed her feet on Irwin’s lap.

“Good Summer?” asked Justin.

“Quieter than usual,” considered Anne, “no dementor attacks, no deatheater riots, just spending time with my family.”

“Now if we can just keep that up, we should be in for a good year,” said Irwin sighing slightly.

“Rumour has it,” said Terry poking his head around the compartment door, “that the three happiest couples in the school are sat in this compartment.”

“So,” asked Michael leaning against the half open door, “what’s the secret to eternal happiness?”

“And by that he means, how do you get and keep such hot girlfriends?” said Terry.

“Well the first thing you need to do,” said Lisa standing up, “is to stop viewing girls an inanimate object.”

“And the second thing you need to do,” added Anne, “is to learn there is no secret, if you wait patiently enough you will meet your special someone.”

“But most importantly,” said Anthony, “you need to get out and leave us in peace.”

“Thank you for the advice ladies,” said Michael bowing slightly as they left the compartment and shut the door after them.

“Gits,” muttered Justin as Lisa sat back down, and he put his arm back around her.

“So what’s the plan for the perfect year?” asked Persephone.

“Well study a lot,” said Anne.

“Make out a lot,” said Lisa beaming at Justin.

“And try and forget about Voldemort,” said Irwin.

“Sounds like a plan to me,” muttered Anthony.

When the train pulled up at the school it was clear how much security had been increased. Before being let in they all had to be searched by secrecy sensors and dark detectors, their bags had to be checked as well.

“Hey Anne,” waved Luna from the Ravenclaw table when they came into the Great Wall.

“Hi Luna,” said Anne giving her a hug, “how was Norway?”

“Fascinating, the fjords were the most beautiful thing I’ve even seen!”

“So did you find a crumple horned snorcack?” asked Anne.

Anthony and Lisa chuckled slightly, and Irwin kicked them both under the table.

“Leave her,” breathed Irwin.

“No,” sighed Luna, “but I did get to pet a reindeer.”

“Oh, that’s lovely,” said Anne.

“Quick question,” said Lisa, “how many more years are there left in the baby boom?”

“Baby booms over,” said Anthony, “the year groups should be back to normal, about a hundred.”

“That still outnumbers us nearly three to one,” pointed out Irwin.

“We sticking to the same method as last year?” asked Anne.

“What I do the physical side such as breaking up fights and crowd control, whilst you do everything else?” asked Anthony.

“Is there any other way?” asked Anne beaming.

“And I thought we were the dream team?” chuckled Persephone.

“Can’t I be on two dream teams?” asked Anthony.

After dinner they headed back up to the Common Room, and everybody toom their trunks up to their dorms.

“Hey Anne,” said Mandy, “so I hear your brothers the chosen one, that’s got to be pretty cool.”

“It really doesn’t change that much,” muttered Anne as she unpacked her books from her trunk and let out Diana.

“Ah, is our dormitories security cat back?” asked Padma tickling Diana behind the ears.

“Not only is she cute,” agreed Mandy, “but she stopped Michael and Terry from getting in last year when they tried to prank our dorm with a bucket of stink bombs.”

“Oh yeah,” said Lisa reminiscently, “their faces were covered in claw marks for a week, it was hilarious!”

“Hey girls,” said Terry poking his head around the door.

Diana looked at him suspiciously looking as though she was preparing herself to attack him again.

“Look no stink bombs!” said Terry showing her his empty pockets. 

Diana still glared at him for a moment before allowing Padma to continue stroking her.

“It’s ten to eight,” Terry pointed out.

“Ohh, good point,” said Mandy putting on her high heels.

“Let’s go blow the roof off this joint!” said Persephone getting up from where she had been unpacking her trunk.

The five girls all headed back down to the common room where the Ravenclaws were gathering.

“Hey hey my fellow Claws!!” called Michael down his wand that he was using as a microphone.

“To our firsties,” said Terry, “welcome to Ravenclaw, the house of creativity, and wisdom.”

“And before you start asking, no we’re not mad, just some of us are a bit eccentric,” said Michael.

The first years were all looking at each other nervously, as though they weren’t so sure that Michael and Terry weren’t mad.

“To everyone else,” said Terry, “welcome back, we’re going to get a lot of studying done this year.”

“But before that,” beamed Michael.

“Let’s rock!” they called before pointing their wands in the air.

Don’t You Want Me Baby, by the Superhuman League started blaring throughout the Common Room.

The first years looked even more confused than they had done earlier, but they soon joined in with the dancing.

“Ok people,” said Terry as it came close to nine o’clock, “we have got time for one more song and we have been given a request.”

“So here we are, I’m Gonna Be, by The Proclaimers,” said Michael.

When the final song came to an end, then Michael and Terry stepped off the chairs they had been standing on, and the students put the desks back to normal.

“Excuse me,” said one of the new first years with blonde bunchies, coming over to talk to Anne “does every house do this?”

“No its just a Ravenclaw thing,” explained Irwin.

“I told you,” said a first year boy, “this house is the party house.”

“I thought Hufflepuff was the party house?” said Lisa.

“Yeah because they’re closer to the kitchens,” nodded Irwin.

“This must be the cool house then,” said the first year.

“No that’s the Gryffindors,” explained Anne.

“So if Gryffindor’s the cool house, and Hufflepuff’s the party house, then what are we?” asked the girl with the blonde bunchies.

“Well we’re not allowed to use the ‘c’ word,” said Anthony, “so we usually go with eccentric or different.”

“Ohh,” said the two first years, they still looking slightly confused.

“So one last night before we hit class,” said Irwin as they finished the unpacking.

“I’ll bring the chess board,” said Anthony.

“And I’ll bring the Monty Python records,” said Lisa.

The sixth years stayed up till the early hours of the morning in the girls dorm, playing chess and listening to comedy records.

“Is it weird,” said Anne as Persephone plaited her hair, “that we’ve only got two years of this left?”

“Wow,” smirked Anthony, “we’ve been doing this for five years and I’m still beating you at chess!”

“Shut up,” growled Michael.


	9. In Which Snape Gives a Rare Smile

Anne woke up and looked around her. Persephone and Lisa were slumped over each other Lisa’s bed, Padma and Mandy had fallen asleep reading the latest issue of Which Witch Weekly, Michael and Anthony had fallen asleep on the floor next to the chess board, Michael was using the chess board as a pillow and the pieces were strewn everywhere and Terry had fallen asleep leaning against Padma’s bed. The only person who was actually sleeping normally was Irwin who was lying next to her on her bed.

Anne had gone to bed at gone midnight, but clearly the others hadn’t bothered to go to bed at all and had just eventually dropped off. 

She checked her watch and saw that it was already seven o’clock.

“Irwin,” she whispered nudging her boyfriend’s body lying on the bed next to her.

“Irwin,” she whispered nudging him again.

“What’s the matter,” he muttered.

“Its seven o’clock,” Anne told him.

“So,” he grumbled pulling the blankets on closer.

“So, it’s your favourite time of the day,” she told him going to go and get dressed.

“Merlin,” he muttered jumping out of bed, “you’re right!”

Anne and Irwin both got dressed at record speed and still got fifteen minutes of kissing in the Common Room before heading down for breakfast.

“Should we wake the others up?” suggested Anne before they left.

“Have you seen Terry first thing in the morning?” asked Irwin, “because it’s not a pretty sight.”

“I’ll just be a minute,” said Anne rushing back up to her dorm.

“Guys,” Anne called softly.

There was no answer.

“Wake up!” she called turning the light on.

“Good god in heaven,” muttered Anthony as the light blinded his eyes.

“What the hell is going on?” asked Mandy opening her eyes.

“It’s half past seven,” said Anne with her arms folded, “you guys need to get up and get down to breakfast to collect your new schedules.”

“Why couldn’t you have let us sleep for another half an hour,” groaned Michael as he lifted his head off of the chess board.

Anne left the room shaking her head and muttering to herself.

“You woke them up, didn’t you?” asked Irwin.

Anne nodded.

“And they were all in a foul mood?” 

“It’s their fault for staying up so late,” said Anne as she and Irwin left leaving the others to get up at their own speed.

Anne and Irwin were halfway through their second round of toast before the others started to show up. Mandy’s hair which was usually immaculate was slightly tangled, Michael and Terry looked like they had slept in their uniforms, which Anne knew was exactly what they had done. All nine of them apart from Anne and Irwin looked exhausted. 

“Why do you two always look so cheerful in the mornings?” mumbled Padma.

“Because we always have a proper night’s sleep,” said Irwin as he ate a slice of toast.

“Their pre-breakfast make out sessions might also help with their good moods,” smirked Anthony.

“You lot are just jealous,” said Irwin proudly.

Professor Flitwick went around the table and handed out the class schedules to the other year groups. Flitwick left the sixth years till last, he had a long list of what grades everyone had achieved and what subjects they wanted to take.

“Right well this shouldn’t be too difficult,” muttered Flitwick.

He went down the table and checked that everyone had the required grades for their chosen subjects.

“Right Miss Potter,” said Flitwick, “well there’s no problem with your grades clearly, are you sure you want to take quite so many subjects?”

“Umm well I enjoy all my subjects,” muttered Anne, “so I don’t really want to drop any, I am dropping care of magical creatures,” she pointed out.

“Eight NEWTs are a lot,” said Flitwick, “but I’m sure you’re more than capable.”

Flitwick signed Anne off for all her new classes and signed Irwin off for his straight afterwards.

Irwin headed straight off for Care of Magical Creatures and Anne went to her first period lesson of Divination. She checked her schedule quickly and saw that unlike Irwin, she wasn’t going to be getting any free periods all week, she supposed she would just have to work extra hard.

She reached the Divination classroom and found that other than her, there were only five people in her NEWT class; Lavender Brown and Padma’s twin Parvati Patil, that annoying Hufflepuff from the DA Zacharias Smith, Hannah Abbot and Astoria Greengrass.

Anne quickly sat down next to Hannah who was much better than the gossiping Lavender and Parvati or the annoying Zacharias.

“Hi Anne,” beamed Hannah, “you got cleared for all your subjects?”

“Yeah you?”

Hannah nodded enthusiastically.

“I’m taking Divination, Charms, Astronomy and Herbology.”

“Well I’m taking all of those and then Potions, Defence, History of Magic and Transfiguration.”

“Good luck with that,” said Hannah with her eyebrows raised slightly.

“Good morning class,” said Professor Trelawney as she glided into the room.

Zacharias lifted his head off of the desk where he had been dozing off.

“Congratulations an achieving the required grades to continue with my class,” said Trelawney, “I knew of course that you would.”

“The requirements weren’t exactly high,” muttered Zacharias.

“Today we are going to start studying the art of capnomancy, can anyone tell me what that is?”

Anne looked around the class and saw that her classmates were clueless.

She raised her hand slowly.

“Yes Dear?”

“Has it got something to do with smoke?” asked Anne.

Trelawney nodded enthusiastically.

“Can’t you try to tell the future by trying to read the smoke fumes?”

“That is correct dear,” nodded Trelawney.

Lavender and Parvati glared at her slightly, because she had known the answer and they hadn’t.

“Do you want to light the fire?” asked Hannah.

“No,” Anne stuttered, she was terrified of fire because she didn’t want to get burnt.

Whilst Hannah lit the fire safely, Anne found the right chapter in the textbook.

“Right,” she muttered, “capnomancy, so we have to watch the smoke fumes, and try and look for shapes in the smoke.”

Trelawney walked around the three desks as they interpreted the smoke fumes.

“All I can see is just smoke,” whispered Hannah trying not to be heard by Trelawney.

“Clear your mind and focus,” said Anne trying to look deep into the smoke.

“I think,” muttered Anne, “I can see a phoenix rising from the ashes.”

“Fascinating,” said Trelawney, “and do you know what that might mean?”

“Rebirth or reincarnation?” she offered.

“What an obvious question,” smirked Zacharias.

“Just because you can’t see anything,” pointed out Daphne.

Divination was followed by Defence Against the Dark Arts. This was one of the busiest NEWT classes and had twenty people in it.

Anne sat down next to Irwin at the front of the class, and then Snape gave his new opening speech.

After his opening speech, Snape told them to practise non-verbal magic in pairs.

“Have fun Irwin,” whispered Anthony leaning across the aisle to talk to him.

Anne had been able to do not only nonverbal but wandless magic since first year.

“You ready Annie?” asked Irwin as he got up.

Anne nodded at him as they both got their wands out.

“Go easy on me,” he said smiling nervously.

They stood a few metres apart and Anne looked at Irwin waiting for something to happen.

Irwin looked back at Anne and tried to disarm her, but nothing happened.

“I can’t do it Annie,” he grumbled after a few minutes.

“Clear your mind Irwin,” said Anne gently, “and think carefully about the spell you want to cast.”

Irwin grimaced for a moment and Anne’s wand starting to pull slightly towards Irwin.

“Keep trying,” she encouraged.

Anne’s wand flew out of her hand and eventually flew over to Irwin.

“Well done Irwin!” she exclaimed running across the room to give him a huge hug.

“Yes congratulations Mr. Scamander,” drawled Snape, “maybe Miss Potter will try defending herself next time?”

Anne blushed slightly as Irwin put her back down, she had not been trying to defend herself so that Irwin would actually be given half a chance.

“Miss Potter,” said Snape, “if you would care to show the class how it is done? This lot a clearly hopeless and need a demonstration,” he said indictaing the rest of the class.

This was the last thing in the world that Anne wanted to do, but as he was the teacher she could hardly argue.

The class went back to their seats and Snape and Anne stood at the front of the class with their wands out.

They stood opposite each other a few metres apart.

Snape made the first move and cast a quick tarantaleggra which Anne barley blocked. Then Anne aimed a rictumsempra at Snape which he also blocked. 

After that Snape managed to disarm Anne and took her wand.

Accio wand, Anne thought in her head as she gestured for her wand to come back towards her.

Snape was so surprised at this display of wandless magic that he didn’t have time to block the flippendo jinx that Anne fired at him nonverbally.

There was a loud bang and Snape was thrown back a few metres before falling onto the floor.

The classes mouths were wide open, Anne had just duelled a teacher and won!

Professor Snape pulled himself off of the ground and dusted his robes off slightly.

He walked towards Anne and she flinched back slightly.

“Congratulations Miss Potter,” said Snape holding out his hand, was it possible that Snape was smiling at her?

“Miss Potter,” said Snape, “has just demonstrated on of the most useful pieces of wandless magic you can learn, summoning back her wand. Can anyone tell me why this is?”

Hermione put her hand in the air. Snape nodded towards her.

“It means that even if you have lost your wand the duel is not over,” said Hermione.

“Yes, five points to Gryffindor and ten points to you too Miss Potter.”

“Thank you sir,” muttered Anne as she sat back down at her desk with great relief.

“Anne can I just remind you,” said Terry, “that you are fucking awesome!”

Michael was nodding in agreement and they were both trying not to laugh about how Anne had knocked over Professor Snape.

After lunch Anne and Irwin had their first History of Magic lesson of the year. History of Magic was just as empty as Divination had been. Apart from Irwin and Anne there was Justin, Lisa, Anthony and Susan Bones. To be quite honest, Anne was surprised that there were these many students in this class, Professor Binns bored most of his students to sleep.

After History of Magic Anne’s first day of NEWTs finally came to a close. She had a huge stack of homework to work her way through though, Trelawney had set a book for them to read by next lesson, and both Snape and Binns had asked for long essays.

Fortunatley it wasn’t Anne’s turn for Prefect duty that night so she managed to get both essays finished before eight o’clock when Michael and Terry turned the music on. At nine o’clock she headed up to her room to read the book for Trelawney.

By the time she finished reading it was already half past eleven at night. She tried to get some sleep but had another nightmare again.

She was sat in the Common Room and had just finished another long essay, Irwin was sat next to her trying to draw a diagram of a creature.

“Irwin,” said Anne looking up from her charms book.

“Yes?” he muttered looking up from his diagram.

Anne noticed that it wasn’t Irwin she was looking at though, those weren’t Irwin’s eyes, that wasn’t Irwin’s voice.

“Irwin?” asked Anne “whats happened to your eyes.”

Irwins red eyes smiled back at her.

“So you realised did you?” asked Irwin in Tom’s voice.

“What have you done with Irwin,” she stuttered.

“See for yourself,” smirked who looked like Irwin but was really Tom indicating out the window.

Anne walked over to the window nervously, and saw that Irwin was hanging on a rope outside the window, his body was so limp he looked more like a ragdoll than a person.

“Irwin!” she screamed.

“Anne, wake up for Merlin’s sake!” shouted Mandy throwing a pillow at her.

“Irwin?” she asked looking around the room panicking. 

“Padma went to go get him,” said Persephone.

“Annie!” said Irwin running into the room in his pyjamas and dressing gown.

Irwin sat down on the bed next to Anne and brushed the stray hairs of her sweat covered face.

“What was it this time?” he asked concernedly as he lit the battery-operated candles on her bedside table.

“Tom,” she stuttered, “he killed you.”

“And just how did he try and kill me this time,” he almost laughed.

“He hung you from a rope outside the Common Room window,” she mumbled pulling at the end of one of her two plaits.

“Good to know,” said Irwin as he sat down next to her on the bed.

“I love how casually you just accept that Voldemort has killed you in her dreams,” said Lisa as she got back into bed.

“Shut up,” he muttered as he got into bed next to Anne.

“Come on Annie,” he whispered, “Tom’s not going to kill me or you, he’d have to get past Diana first.”

Diana was lying proudly in front of the dormitory door blocking entrance to anyone that she didn’t like, or someone she thought was up to something.

Anne eventually drifted back off to sleep snuggling in next to Irwin.


	10. The Two Potions Teachers

The first week appeared to fly by, on the Wednesday afternoon they had their first potions class with Professor Slughorn.

Anne had been looking forward to this class because she was curious how a teacher other than Snape was going to teach potions.

She lined up outside the classroom with the rest of the class, there were just over a dozen people in this class, a group of four Slytherins, Harry, Ron, Hermione, Ernie, Irwin, Anthony, Mandy and Anne.

Professor Slughorn opened the door and Anne saw that there were three bubbling cauldrons on the different desks in the room. Slughorn seemed to have decided to push desks together for his NEWT class, which meant that there was three very large tables rather than the usual dozen or so smaller tables.

The Ravenclaws walked over to the table where there was a cauldron which was giving off a very pleasing aroma. To Anne it smelt like new books, freshly laundered bedsheets, chocolate, and strawberries.

“Good Afternoon class,” beamed Slughorn, “and welcome to your first potions class.”

Professor Slughorn asked around about the potions in the three cauldrons and Anne told him that the one in front of her was Amortentia which she could tell because it was giving off her favourite scents.

He then asked them to get out their books and equipment and prepare a draught of living death.

Anne got out her textbook and noticed how outdated the instructions were, these couldn’t be right, she thought as she reached halfway through the potion, you don’t cut the Sopophorus bean you crush it Professor Snape had taught her last year. She looked over to where Hermione was trying to get the juice out of her bean at the next table, unsurprisingly it wasn’t working.

Anne merely shrugged and tried crushing it like Professor Snape had taught her, it worked almost instantly, the juice came pouring out of her bean.

“What did you do,” muttered Mandy frantically who had just reached that point in the instructions.

“Crush it with a silver dagger,” said Anne nonchanantly.

“How do you know that,” muttered Mandy as she crushed hers.

“Snape told me,” she shrugged.

Anne then started to stir her potion clockwise, but it wasn’t turning the right colour. Back in her fourth year Snape had told her that sometimes you had to add a counterclockwise turn, she tried this, and it worked again. 

At the end of the class only two potions were even close to the required consistency, Harry’s was pale pink but Anne’s was as clear as water.

“I think we have a clear winner!” said Slughorn looking at Anne’s potions, “you must have your mother’s clear genius for potions!”

Anne blushed slightly as he handed her a bottle of Felix Felicis. Harry was giving her the thumbs up from behind Slughorn as he Slughorn shoke her hand.

“Is there anything you’re not the best at freak,” glared Malfoy at the end of the lesson as they headed up to dinner.

“Leave her alone Malfoy,” said Irwin pulling his wand out.

“Now come on Scamander she is freak,” drawled Malfoy.

“Leave her alone!” Irwin shouted prodding Malfoy with his wand in the chest.

Anne held out her hand and both wands flew towards her.

“Stop!” she shouted.

They both turned to look at her.

“Irwin don’t be stupid,” she muttered.

Irwin looked slightly sheepish but stepped away from where he was about to hit Malfoy on the nose.

“Malfoy, I don’t know what you’ve got against me, but please just leave me alone,” she said passing Malfoy back his wand.

“Oh I don’t know,” said Malfoy looking as though he was trying to think for a moment, “maybe its because you’ve sent my father to Azkaban twice now?”

Anthony had to hold Irwin back from launching himself on Malfoy.

“Yeah well he deserved it! He set a werewolf on her in third year and last year he helped your aunt torture her!”

“Look Malfoy,” said Anne trying to keep calmly, “just leave us alone.”

Anne turned away before the fight got even worse, Anthony followed with a seething Irwin they were trying to keep calm.

As she walked away she blocked a curse that she was speeding towards her, she turned her head around and sent the stinging jinx straight back to Malfoy where it had come from.

“Cheating cowardly scum!” shouted Irwin trying to run back to Malfoy

“How did you even know that was coming?” asked Anthony as he struggled to pull Irwin from Malfoy.

“I guessed,” muttered Anne.

They eventually reached the Great Hall and sat as far away from Malfoy as possible.

Irwin ate at great speed, he was still furious at Malfoy, every few bites he would stop to glare at Draco.

“There something wrong Anne?” asked Mandy.

Anne had hardly touched her beef stew.

“Well its just Slughorns a rubbish teacher,” Anne admitted.

“You seemed to do alright,” pointed out Anthony.

“That’s only because when I got stuck, I trawled my memory for advice Professor Snape had given us over the years.”

“Oh,” said Mandy.

“So how did Harry do so well?”

“I have no idea,” she muttered going over to talk to him. Harry had always been ok at potions but never brilliant.

“Harry can I borrow your potions book?” 

“What?” asked Harry deeply confused.

“Can I borrow your book?” she asked again holding out her hand.

Harry looked at her for a moment before reaching into his bag and passing her his second hand copy of Moste Impotonte Potiones he had got out of the supply closet.

Anne flicked the book open to the page for The Draught of Living Death.

She noticed that the book was covered in scrawls from a hand she knew very well.

“I need to borrow this,” she muttered leaving the Great Hall without having eaten a bite.

She walked back down to the dungeons and knocked on Professor Snapes office door.

“Enter,” called a tired voice.

“Excuse me sir,” said Anne coming into the office, “is this yours?” she asked holding up the battered potions book.

Snape looked at her in shock for a moment completely gobsmacked.

“Where did you find that?” he whispered.

Anne had never seen Snape look quite so terrifying and menacing as he did right now.

“Um Harry found it in the supply closet in the Potions classroom.”

“Has he used it?” asked Snape in a voice that could cut glass.

“Only in class sir,” Anne stuttered.

“How did you know it was mine?” he asked suspiciously.

“The handwriting. Also,” Anne stammered, “all the extra instructions are the exact same advice you’ve given me over the last five years.”

Snape seemed to smile slightly.

“Very well thought through Miss Potter,” said Snape, “you say Harry has only used it in class?”

“Yes sir,” nodded Anne.

“Not used any of the spells yet?”

“No sir,” Anne shook her head frantically.

“Good,” he muttered.

He took the book from her for her moment and seemed to be searching for a certain page, he took out his wand, and took the ink straight out of the page from one of his handwritten notes.

“This book should be safe to use now,” said Snape, “I hope he uses it well.”

“Sir,” asked Anne before she left.

Snape looked up again from where he had been getting out some papers to mark.

“Do you mind if I go through the book and add the extra instructions to my copy before I give it back to Harry?”

“Of course,” nodded Snape, “oh and by the way, thank you for bringing that book in, in the wrong hands it could have been very dangerous.”

Anne was slightly confused as she left the dungeons, how could a school potions book be dangerous? But then she had to remember that Snape had once been a deatheater.

Anne stayed up all night doing her homework and then transferring the notes from Snapes copy of the book into her own.

She had chuckled slightly when she passed his nickname, The Half Blood Prince, it was the sort of name that Harry would have tried to pick out for himself.

“Annie,” said Irwin yawning slightly as he came down the next morning, “you been up all night?”

“Yeah, I have to give Harry his book back, otherwise he would use this as an excuse not to do his homework.”

“You do realise,” said Irwin as he pulled her in close whilst Anne put the lid on her bottle of ink, “that even when you haven’t slept all night, you are the most beautiful girl in the world?”


	11. A Dinner Invitation

Anne was sat at her usual desk in the Common Room, her desk was spread out with astronomy charts for the essay she was trying to write on Ganymede. She had a pair of headphones plugged into her Walkman which was playing her American Pie tape.

Irwin was sat at the desk next to her trying to trawl his way through a massive runes dictionary for the translation he was trying to do.

“Hey Anne!” called Morgana waving at her.

“Oh,” said Anne pulling off her headset, “hi Morgana.”

“Professor Slughorn asked me to give these to you two,” she said handing both Anne and Irwin tightly rolled scrolls.

“Thanks Morgana!” called Irwin as she skipped off to hang out with the second years.

“What in the world could this be?” wondered Anne as she untied the scroll.

“Merlin’s fucking pants,” muttered Irwin under his breath, “dad warned me Slughorn would try and do something like this.”

“What is it?” asked Anne as she read her scroll.

“We have been invited to join the Slug Club,” groaned Irwin.

Anthony was fighting to hold back a laugh.

“Slug Club,” choked Anthony.

“It’s a club formed by Slughorn,” explained Anne wearily, “he picks out students he thinks are the most brilliant and tries to help them with their careers, he asks for favours later in life.”

“How do you know much?” asked Persephone raising her eyebrows slightly.

“He told me over the Summer,” said Anne, “mum and Snape both used to be in it.”

“So did my Mum and Dad,” added Irwin looking thoroughly miserable.

“Harry’s probably got one too,” said Irwin glaring at the scroll hoping that he could conveniently lose his invitation.

“Annie do you think we could just not turn up?” asked Irwin hopefully. It was on a Friday night which was their best night of the week, no Prefect duties and homework got left till the weekend, on Friday nights they just relaxed.

“I’m afraid not,” said Anne just as fed up as Irwin.

On Friday after class, Anne rushed up to the dormitory to get ready for Slughorn’s dinner party. She only had an hour to get ready.

She frantically brushed through her hair and did it in one elegant plait down her back rather than the usual two. She attached a flower clip to the end of her plait. 

She went over to the wardrobe and pulled out a deep purple dress which feel to just below the knee, Luna helped her do up the zip and then all Anne had to do was pull on her nylons and black high heels.

“You ready Irwin?” asked Anne as she came down the stairs from the girls dorms to the Common Room.

“How is it,” said Irwin looking her up and down, “that every single time I see you my auburn locked goddess is even more beautiful? Have you been blessed by Aphrodite?”

Anne’s cheeks blushed almost as red as her hair.

“Stop embarrassing her and get going mate,” said Anthony shoving them both towards the exit to the Common Room.

“Don’t keep her out too late!” called Anthony.

“We’ll be waiting up for you!” added Persephone.

They both went back into the Common Room cackling with their arms around each other.

“Gits,” muttered Irwin as they headed to Slughorn’s office.

“Ah Mr Scamander, Miss Potter,” beamed Slughorn when they arrived, “I believe you may already know some of the people here?”

Anne and Irwin walked into the office which had been turned into a formal dining room. Several students were already sitting around, Blaise Zabini a dark boy who was the brains that Malfoy tended to go to when Crabbe or Goyle couldn’t help him, and also a pair of twins from Slytherin. A thuggish looking seventh year Gryffindor seemed to be trying to talk to Harry, but Harry was attempting to ignore him. Neville, Hermione, and Ginny were waving at them and had saved seats next to them for Anne and Irwin.

“Hey guys!” beamed Irwin sitting down next to Ginny, this left the seat next to Neville for Anne.

“Is he ok?” Anne mouthed to Ginny looking at the boy who wouldn’t leave Harry alone, and the frustrated expression on Harry’s face.

Ginny nudged Harry slightly.

“Oh, hey Sis!” said Harry relived to have an excuse to get away from Cormac.

In all fairness the dinner wasn’t as bad as it could have been, Slughorn just went around and asked them all about their parents and what they wanted to do after school.

When they got around to Irwin they clutched each others hands under the table, Slughorn was about to ask Irwin about his mum.

“So Irwin how is your father Landon?” asked Slughorn.

“He’s good” said Irwin as he ate his soup, “he just had a paper published on the possibility of another Gamp’s law.”

“Oh yes,” said Slughorn, “I did read about that. It was such a shame about your mother Mary she was a great witch, Lestrange wasn’t it?” he asked casually as though his mother’s death might not be a sensitive subject.

Several heads turned in the room, even some of the people who knew Irwin fairly well such as Hermione or Ginny hadn’t known that Gwendoline was actually Irwin’s stepmother.

“Yes Bellatrix Lestrange,” muttered Irwin as he gripped Anne’s hand with one hand and played with his soup with the other.

Anne Neville and Irwin all exchanged significant looks and a chill entered the room

“So Irwin,” said Slughorn, “what do you plan to do after school?”

“Well actually me and Annie are planning on going into the ministry,” Irwin smiled relieved at the change of subjects.

“Oh really,” said Slughorn rubbing his hands together, “which departments?”

“Well I want to go into the Department of Magical Law Enforcement.”

“Try and protect the underdog eh?” asked Slughorn, “you’re just like your mother!”

“And then Annie wants to enter into the Department of Education.”

“Is that so?” asked Slughorn with great enthusiasm.

“Um yes sir,” muttered Anne pulling at the end of her plait.

“Well Merlin knows that department could use some fresh blood, most of them are older than me,” he chuckled, “I’ll have to try and put you two in contact with some old friends of mine.”

“Thank you, sir,” they said earnestly before Slughorn moved onto Neville.

If Irwin had been awkward this would be even worse.

“So how are Alice and Frank Neville?” asked Slughorn casually.

“Um they’re a little bit better,” said Neville honestly, “the healers say they’re improving.”

Neville didn’t want to give too much away because they had all agreed not to tell too many people about the possibility of Alice and Frank actually getting their minds back.

By the time the profiteroles came around Slughorn seemed to have made up his mind about several people in the room, it was fairly clear that Neville would not be getting a return invitation. Irwin would have done anything to get out of a return invitation himself but alas it was not to be.

At the end of dinner it was nearly ten o’clock and Anne and Irwin wanted to head back to the dormitories but they did run in to Cormac pestering Harry again. Ginny was standing to one side trying to stop Harry from getting too frustrated.

“Look McLagan,” Harry seethed attempting to keep his temper, “just show up for the trial in the morning I will not be showing anyway any favouritism.”

“What about your best friend,” interjected McLagan.

“Excuse me,” said Irwin stepping in-between Harry and McLagan, “if Harry says he will show no favouritism he wont,” said Irwin calmly but firmly.

“If you have an important try out in the morning I would get to bed if I were you, because Harry and I have to walk these lovely ladies back to the Common Room.”

Irwin linked his arm with Anne’s, and they walked off down the corridor followed by Harry who had his arm around Ginny’s waist. McLagan was stood where Irwin had left him slightly dumbstruck, his mouth wide open like a fish.

“Thanks Irwin,” chuckled Harry, “if that had gone on much longer I might have swung for him.”

“And I wouldn’t have held you back,” admitted Ginny honestly.

“Want to come down to try outs tomorrow to watch?” asked Harry enthusiastically.

Anne pulled at her plait anxiously.

“Um we’ve got a load of homework to get through,” said Irwin quickly, knowing how nervous Anne got when she watched her brother on a broomstick.

“Fair enough,” shrugged Harry as they reached the corridor where they went separate directions.

“See you tomorrow little sis,” said Harry giving his sister a huge hug.

“Night Harry!” called Anne as her and Irwin headed to the Ravenclaw dorms whilst Harry and Ginny went to the Gryffindor.

“See,” said Irwin, “that could have gone much worse!”

“Very true,” muttered Anne drowsily. 

It was only half past ten but she had had such a long week, she trudged up to Irwin’s dorm, took off her heels and then collapsed onto Irwin’s bed still fully dressed falling asleep instantly.

That night Anne did have her usual nightmares but she always got back to sleep, but tonight there was a new dream, it wasn’t a nightmare though. In the dream a phoenix was fighting a huge snake, the phoenix eventually lost and burst into flames and the snake moved away, but then the phoenix arose from the ashes and flew away.


	12. Two Very Different Days

It reached November and Anne seemed to be getting the quiet year at Hogwarts she had always dreamed off. She would go to class and do her homework, do Prefect duty with Anthony spend time with her friends, and go to the occasional party with the Slug Club with Irwin, Hermione, Ginny and Harry.

She was sat at her usual desk doing her potions essay on a Sunday afternoon with her headphones plugged into her Walkman listening to a Roy Orbison tape.

Suddenly Anne’s eyes were covered by someone’s hands.

“Guess who?” he chuckled.

“Let me see,” muttered Anne, “who do I know how always smells of chocolate?”

“Hi Annie,” chuckled Irwin kissing her. Irwin as always tasted slightly chocolatey and smelt of citrus from the lime shower gel he used.

“Chocolate?” he asked sitting down at the desk with her and pulling out a bar of chocolate he always carried on him for emergencies.

“No thanks Irwin,” she laughed as she finished her potions essay.

“I’ve got a surprise for you,” he said beaming.

Anne sighed as she put away her essay as Irwin held out his hand excitedly.

Anne and Irwin raced down to the seventh floor and what a shock, as usual Irwin’s surprise was within the room of requirement.

“So whats the big surprise,” said Anne with her hand on her hips as the headed into the room.

“The surprise is me dragging you away from your work for the afternoon,” he pointed out

“Actually, I’d already finished,” Anne told him.

“Yeah but once you’ve finished you usually start helping someone else and this afternoon,” he beamed as he pulled her into the room, “you are all mine!”

The Room of Requirement seemed to have turned into a sitting room, with a sofa, large piles of books and a coffee table which had a pot of tea and an assortment of cakes.

“This looks like a sitting room for a middle-aged couple,” said Anne as Irwin lit the fire in the fireplace.

Irwin looked around and saw that Anne was kind of right, there was floral print sofa, huge stacks of books and an afternoon table on the coffee table. He had tried to plan for every eventuality.

“You got a problem with that?” he asked pulling her in close.

“No,” she giggled, “of course not.”  
This was the first time that Anne and Irwin had been properly alone without even the slightest threat of people bursting in, in months

Anne and Irwin made out on the sofa for what felt like several long days but was actually only about half an hour.

“Do you want some tea?” he asked once they had finished.

Anne nodded eagerly and they both knelt down by the coffee table as Irwin poured the tea and Anne sorted out the cakes. There were scones filled to bursting with clotted cream and strawberry jam, strawberry tarts with custard, there was even a mini Victoria sponge just big enough for two people.

“Where did you get all this?” she chuckled as she put one of each onto both of their plates.

“Kreacher,” beamed Irwin, “he’ll do anything for you, so he sent me your favourite sweet treats.”

Anne took a sip from her tea and then got out a fork which she used for the cakes.

Irwin decided that he couldn’t be bothered with a fork, the cakes just looked too good. He picked up his scone loaded with jam and cream and took a huge bite.

“You’ve got cream on your nose,” she chuckled.

Irwin had managed to get a dollop of clotted cream on his nose when he had tried to eat his scone. Anne reached over and wiped the cream off with her finger before eating it.

Irwin shook his head slightly and pulled Anne in for another long kiss.

Once they had finished the cakes Irwin levitated the coffee table over to the side of the room.

He flicked his wand at the ceiling, and music started to fill the room.

Anne danced in Irwin’s arms to everything from Vera Lynn’s We’ll Meet Again, to Air Supply’s Making Love Out of Nothing At All. 

They kept dancing until both their feet got tired and they eventually gave up after dancing for several hours. They were lying down on the sofa listening to The Seekers together before they had to go back to the Common Room. Irwin was one of the only people Anne knew apart from Remus and Brenda who appreciated the genius of The Seekers.

“Come on Annie,” grumbled Irwin at ten o’clock, “we’ve got class in the morning.”

Irwin heaved himself off of the sofa and Anne and Irwin walked back to the Common Room together their arms around each other.

“Where have you two been all afternoon?” asked Persephone smirking with her hands on her hips.

“If you keep her out this late again, we might not let you take her out,” added Anthony wagging his finger at them.

“Fuck off,” muttered Irwin.

“Did you two get the afternoon off you needed?” asked Persephone as they all sat in front of the fire together.

“Yep,” nodded Irwin, “you two?”

“We kept on having to change classrooms,” grumbled Anthony.

“People kept on walking in,” chuckled Persephone.

“Yeah, like Won-Won and Lav-Lav,” Anthony muttered darkly raising his eyebrows.

“They make me sick,” agreed Persephone.

“They can’t be that bad,” chuckled Irwin looking at his two best friends.

“I mean people thought me and Annie were a bit annoying at first,” he pointed out.

“You two were cute,” said Persephone.

“They make us sick,” finished Anthony.

“Sephie we should get to bed,” said Anne.

Persephone was looking fairly tired and it was the full moon tomorrow night so she needed to get as much sleep as she could tonight.

“Goodnight my beautiful goddess,” said Irwin as he stroked Anne’s cheek before giving her one last kiss.

“Now you see Seph, I’d try and be all poetic and romantic, but I’d just get outdone by young Romeo over here,” said Anthony.

“Goodnight Anthony,” said Persephone giving him a kiss before following Anne up the staircase.

Anne had the same dream again about the phoenix and the snake, she’d had it quite a few times over the last few months. She jotted it down again in her diary as she woke up, she just wished she knew what it meant, at least it meant she wasn’t having quite as many nightmares as she used to.

She knew that snakes meant deviousness and phoenixes were rebirth or reincarnation, but that just didn’t make any sense.

Anne looked over to where Diana was guarding the door to stop any unwelcome intruders. Diana saw that Anne was awake and came over to her bed.

“Morning Di,” muttered Anne tickling her between the ears. Anne pulled Diana under the covers because it was freezing cold as it was five o’clock on a November morning.

She went through her schedule for the day, Divination, Defence Against the Dark Arts, and History of Magic. She was all caught up on her homework as the weekend had just finished.

Diana started licking Anne’s face with kisses. She knew that Irwin wouldn’t be up for hours as it was only just five o’clock. She went to go and take a bath and wash her hair, before pulling on her uniform.

As she brushed out her hair for her plaits, she wondered if anyone at home might be awake, she knew he had full moon tonight.

“Sirius,” Anne called leaning against one of the sofas in the Common Room.

“Hello?” Sirius picked up almost instantly.

“Heya kiddo,” he beamed his face cracking into a grin.

“I didn’t know if anyone would even be awake,” Anne muttered.

“I just got back from doing a mission with Mundungus,” Sirius explained, “how are you?”

“I’m ok,” said Anne, “I just miss everyone back home, how’s little Teddy?”

“He’s great, Tonks is relieved, he’s finally started sleeping through the night.”

Anne and Sirius talked for little while before Sirius had to head off to bed as he’d been up all night.

“Hey Anne,” called Morgana as she came into the Common Room.

“Hi Morgana, how’s second year treating you?”

“Pretty good yeah,” she nodded, “you heard from Julian recently?”

“He’s great, getting on with his work, even joined the Order of the Pheonix.”

“Isn’t that dangerous?” stammered Morgana.

“Morgana your brother is more than capable of protecting himself,” said Anne firmly.

“It’s the complete opposite of back home,” she said, “Dad hates the Order and everything it stands for.”

Anne remembered what Julian had been worried about a few months back, but just because Mr Selwyn didn’t like Dumbledore that didn’t mean he was a deatheater, not everyone in the world was black or white, there was a lot of grey in-between.

“Oh, that reminds me,” said Morgana fishing in her school bag, “I’ve got a message for you.”

She handed a rolled-up piece of parchment to her. For a moment Anne thought it was another invitation from Slughorn but when she unrolled, she realised that she was wrong. 

Dear Anne,

Could you and your brother please come to my office at seven o’clock tonight?

Looking forward to seeing you then, Professor Dumbledore.

By the way, I like fudge flies.

Why did Dumbledore want to meet up with her and Harry? What could be so important?

Anne only picked at her breakfast and lunch, she was so distracted, why in the world did Dumbledore want to meet up with her?

“You’ve got to eat something Annie,” coaxed Irwin at dinner.

Anne tried to eat a potato, but it got stuck in her throat, and turned to dust.

“Still worried about Dumbledore?” he asked knowingly.

“Hmmm,” Anne muttered.

“Why don’t we try and get a start on that essay on the impact of goblin rebellions on the wizarding world?”

Anne shrugged and picked up her bag, at least it might be able to distract her for a while.

By the time that they finished the essay it was a quarter to seven.

“Good luck Annie,” he called as Anne left the common room.

Anne shuffled her way along to Professor Dumbledore’s office, she met Harry at the entrance to the spiral staircase.

“Hey little Sis,” grinned Harry.

“Hi,” she muttered.

“Look Anne I’m sure it can’t be that bad,” said Harry as they headed up the staircase to Dumbledore’s office.

“Harry, Anne,” beamed Dumbledore as they came into the room, “thank you for coming.”

“Is there something wrong sir?” muttered Anne as she sat down.

“There are a few matters I have asked you both to come here to discuss,” sighed Dumbledore.

“I wish I had more time,” he continued.

“What do you mean more time sir?” asked Harry.

Dumbledore showed them his hand, it was getting worse, his blackened hand had now reached halfway up his arm.

“How long do you have left?” asked Anne knowingly dreading the worst.

“If Professor Snapes antidotes work, hopefully around late June.”

“What do you mean hopefully?” shouted Harry.

Anne gripped Harry’s hand under the table trying to get him to keep his temper.

“The cursed injury is a progressive illness; it’s going to get worse not better.”

“Who else knows?” asked Anne.

“Apart from you two, only Professor Snape and that is for obvious reasons.”

“So why are you telling us?” asked Harry.

“Because, I’m worried that I won’t be able to get rid of all the horcruxes before I die.”

Harry calmed down so that he could keep his head clear.

“So, there’s three left right?” said Harry.

“Yes Harry,” Dumbledore nodded, “three left, Hufflepuffs cup and probably his snake Nagini.”

“What about the third sir?” asked Anne nervously. She knew there had to be more of a reason for her and Harry being called in.

“You know that Harry is the Chosen One?”

They both nodded.

“What I’m going to tell, you cannot tell anyone,” Dumbledore said firmly.

“Harry’s a horcrux isn’t he?” Anne muttered looking at Harry’s scar.

Harry looked at his sister dumbstruck.

“No,” Harry laughed nervously, “I’m not a horcrux I can’t be.”

“That’s why we can see inside his head, and Harry can talk to snakes?”

Harry looked from Dumbledore to Anne as if hoping that one of them would tell him that Anne was wrong.

Dumbledore nodded solemnly.

Anne put an arm around her brother, Harry had gone silent his mouth agape.

“So, Harry has to die?” Anne stuttered.

“I’m afraid so,” Dumbledore nodded again, “but try to kill the snake and get the cup first.”

“Are you telling me,” Harry seethed, “that you have been preparing me all these years, how to hunt Horcruxes just so I can die anyway?”

“I know Harry I’m sorry,” said Dumbledore a tear in his eyes, “I should have told you years ago, but you weren’t ready.”

“Oh what?” Harry shouted jumping up from his seat, “and I’m ready now!”

Anne was trying her hardest to stop herself from going into lockdown, she had to support her brother.

Harry was about one step away from trashing Professor Dumbledore’s office.

“Why does it have to be me!” he screamed pushing over a stack of books that toppled onto the floor.

“I know Harry,” said Dumbledore calmly.

“You haven’t got a part of Voldemort’s soul hiding inside your body!”

Anne started to go into lockdown, her brain started to be filled with a buzzing noise. Even when people weren’t shouting or screaming at her, she got upset.

“Why don’t you just kill me now if you have to!”

“Because,” explained Dumbledore, “you have to be killed by Tom when the time is right.”

“Right!” Harry yelled, “how will it ever be right!”

“I know Harry,” said Dumbledore, “I think you and Anne could use some time to talk.”

Harry looked over to his sister who was staring blankly into space, this was beyond a panic attack.

Harry took a deep breath.

“Come on sis,” he muttered still seething with anger.

Harry shepherded his sister from the office and down to the Room of Requirement.

The room changed into Anne’s bedroom back at Grimmauld Place. Anne slumped leaning against the bed staring at the wall.

Harry cast a quick muffliato on Anne’s bedroom door to make sure that nobody in the house could hear them or know they were even there.

“What the fucking hell are we going to do Anne?” Harry muttered joining her on the floor.

“I don’t know,” she mumbled.

He put an arm around her, and Anne finally burst into tears.

“What am I going to do without you?” she sobbed.

“You’ll be ok, you’ve got Irwin, Remus, Sirius Tonks, I won’t be abandoning you.”

“You’re my brother Harry,” she cried, “nobody could ever replace you!”

“I know that Sis,” he muttered.

“I’m scared,” she stuttered calming down slightly.

“Me too,” said Harry.

“I mean everyone has to die,” said Anne, “but so soon, you’re a part of me!”

“Yes well,” said Harry laughing slightly, “unfortunately Tom’s a part of me.”

Anne didn’t know how long she and Harry were in there, they didn’t talk much mainly just crying and holding each other close. Everyone dies but most people don’t know that they how they’re going to die, but if Harry didn’t die eventually, how many more people would Tom kill?

“I should get you back to the Common Room,” said Harry after a while, “Irwin will be worried about you.”

“What you going to tell Ginny?” she asked turning to face him with tears running down her face.

“I can’t tell her anything,” Harry struggled.

“We can’t tell anyone about anything we’ve heard tonight,” he sighed.

“Anne do you understand, we can’t tell anyone, not Irwin, not Remus, not Ginny, about either Dumbledore or me.”

Anne nodded uncertainly.

“Come on then,” he said trying to put a smile on his face as he helped Anne up from the floor.

“What always comes but never arrives?” asked the eagle knocker when they arrived.

“Tomorrow,” said Harry.

The Common Room swung open.

“See you tomorrow yeah Sis?” said Harry giving her one last hug.

Anne went into the Common Room and found Irwin, Anthony and Persephone at their usual table

“Hey Anne, how was old Dumbles?” asked Persephone.

Anne shrugged as she leant against Irwin’s armchair next to the fire.

“You ok Anne?” asked Anthony.

Anthony had seen Anne’s face when she had come in and her eyes looked red like she’d been crying.

“Hmmm,” she muttered leaning deeper into Irwin.

“You look exhausted Annie,” said Irwin stroking her hair.

“You been pushing yourself too hard again Anne?” asked Persephone, “maybe you should drop a few subjects.”

“No I’m fine,” she muttered getting up.

“I’m going off to bed,” she rushed from the room before they even had a chance to try and stop her.

She quickly changed into her pyjamas and hid under her blankets.

“Anne you in here?” asked Persephone poking her head around the door.

“Just leave her Sephie,” said Irwin, “sometimes she just needs to be alone.”

Anne hugged one of her pillows underneath the blankets, her tears were running down her cheeks. Diana came to join her under the sheets and started to lick the tears off of her cheeks.

She eventually managed to drift off into an uneasy sleep, there was a new dream tonight though and it was different from the others, it wasn’t quite a nightmare. It was in the future, she was married to Irwin, they had three children all with dark red hair, but she wasn’t quite happy and she knew why, Harry was dead.


	13. Family Christmas

Another month flew by, occasionally Dumbledore would ask Harry and Anne back for another meeting, in the week before Christmas they had had a very memorable meeting where Dumbledore told them about the Deathly Hallows. He explained to them that the objects from the Tale of the Three Brothers where not only real, but they were all this room, Dumbledore’s wand, the stone from the Horcrux ring and the invisibility cloak in Harry’s pocket.

She kept her bottle of Felix Felicis from Slughorn hidden at the bottom of her trunk.

The night before they all went home for Christmas was the night of Slughorn’s Christmas party.

Before she got ready for the party she was fishing around in her trunk for her Walkman, she hadn’t seen it in a few days and she missed it, she liked to listen to music whilst she studied.

Anne was wearing a set of deep purple dress robes, purple seemed to be her colour, it suited her dark red hair. She plaited her hair and then Lisa pinned the plait up into a bun.

She added a silver necklace of the moon she had given by the Scamander’s a few years back.

“Hello my beautiful goddess,” beamed Irwin as she came down the stairs.

“And I thought you could never get more beautiful but yet each time I see you your beauty grows.”

Anne blushed slightly and gave him a shy smile.

“If most said people that it would be creepy,” said Anthony from behind his book.

“Leave off Goldstein,” muttered Irwin as they left the Common Room.

“So, Annie, what’s your plan for this Christmas?” he asked as they headed down to the kitchens.

“Just a usual family Christmas,” said Anne.

“As usual as you can get when your family actually consists of four separate families,” chuckled Irwin.

“I’ll have you know that although we are a tad bit strange, we are very happy.”

“I know that, you’ll have a great time! Little Teddy must be getting quite big now?”

“Yeah, eight and a half months,” Anne nodded. She couldn’t wait to see Teddy again, she missed him so much.

“Anne, Irwin,” beamed Slughorn, “welcome!”

Slughorn was wearing an emerald green velvet smoking jacket that hardly did up around his huge stomach.

“Thank you sir,” said Irwin shaking Slughorn’s hand.

“Merry Christmas sir,” said Anne.

Slughorn had invited some very strange people to the party including a vampire.

“There you two are,” said Slughorn halfway through the party, he had a middle-aged wizard with him in a pair of sky blue dress robes.

“Anne, Irwin, this is Richard Boot,” said Slughorn, “Richard, this is Anne Potter and Irwin Scamander, these are the two promising young students I was telling you about, looking for a career in the Ministry.”

“Hello sir,” said Irwin holding out his hand and Slughorn left.

“Hello, so you’re the famous Anne and Irwin?” he chuckled, “Horace hasn’t stopped going on about you for weeks, to be honest I wouldn’t have come if I didn’t want to meet you both.”

“So what department are you in at the Ministry?” asked Irwin.

“Deputy head of Magical Law Enforcement,” said Richard Boot.

“Really?” asked Irwin suddenly interested, “that’s the department I want to get into!”

“As I said,” Richard beamed, “Sluggy’s been nagging me to meet you for over a month.”

“It’s the Department of Education you’re interested isn’t it Miss Potter?”

“Yes sir,” muttered Anne staring down at her shoes.

“Annie’s a bit shy,” said Irwin in a stage whisper.

“Why education though?”

“Education is an essential part of a witch or wizards’ life,” Anne explained. “It can provide a proper foundation; I want to make it as worthwhile as possible.”

“You need teachers that will interest and engage with the students. The course curriculum’s need some serious updating, muggle studies is seriously outdated.”

Richards mouth twitched slightly as Anne gave her passionate speech.

“I thought you said she was shy?” he asked turning to Irwin and trying his hardest not to laugh.

“She is!” chuckled Irwin, “usually, unless it’s a topic she has some really serious opinions about.”

“Well, when you two graduate we’ll have to see about getting you both in the departments you’re interested in, it was lovely to meet you both.”

Richard walked off to go and talk to Harry and Ginny.

The most entertaining part of the evening was watching Hermione try and avoid Cormac McLagan who she had only invited to spite Ron. 

The party didn’t end until gone midnight, Anne and Irwin headed back to Common Room which for once was empty.

“Merry Christmas Annie,” muttered Irwin.

Anne waved her hand over their heads and a sprig of mistletoe appeared hanging in mid-air.

Irwin’s eyes lit up and he pulled Anne in close for a long kiss under the mistletoe.

“I love you Annie,” he whispered softly.

“I love you too,” she answered.

“Irwin,” she mumbled between kisses.

“Hmmm?”

“We have to get the train in a few hours,” she reminded him.

“You’re right,” he sighed, “I’ll see you in the morning.”

Anne had a number of dreams that night, the one with the phoenix and the snake, and a couple of nightmares featuring Quirrell and Tom. 

There was another dream where Anne was in the garden at Elm Grove on a Summer’s afternoon, she was cuddling a tiny baby who had a shock of red hair, Irwin was lying under a tree next to her casting bubbles out of his wand. They were so happy, but Anne knew that Harry wasn’t there, she knew that by the time she and Irwin started a family, Harry would be dead.

Anne packed her trunk and got the train home to King’s Cross, Sirius and Mad Eye Moody were waiting for them on the platform.

“Hey Sirius,” said Harry rushing over to his godfather.

“Hey there Prongslet,” beamed Sirius pulling Harry into a hug.

“Anne,” said Sirius looking her up and down, “you’re turning into a young lady.”

“She is coming of age in eight months Sirius,” pointed out Moody taking her trunk.

When they got back to 12 Grimmauld Place, Tonks was at work, but Remus was at home with Teddy.

“Hi Teddy,” said Anne taking him from Remus and giving him a huge cuddle.

“Don’t I get a welcome anymore?” asked Remus in a slightly offended tone.

“Of course,” said Anne handing Teddy to Sirius so Remus could pull into a huge hug.

“I’ve missed you so much,” he muttered into her hair, “have you put on some weight?”

Anne was looking slightly less skinny than she used to, between regular sleep with help from Irwin, she had been able to rest properly, even Madam Pomfrey had noticed that she had put on some weight, she was still skinny though of course.

Anne and Harry had a great Christmas, they were trying to make it memorable as it was Teddy’s first. Sirius pulled out his Father Christmas costume that he hadn’t worn since before Harry and Anne started at Hogwarts, Dobby was wearing a muggle Christmas elf costume and was helping him hand out all the presents.

“What do we have here?” said Sirius dramatically pulling out a large box.

Anne had already got the regular books and sweets from her family and friends as well as some new clothes from Tonks.

Sirius passed her the huge box which he rested on her lap, she groaned slightly under its weight.

“I wonder what’s in here?” she asked Teddy who was sitting next to her on Tonk’s lap.

She pulled the wrapping paper off from the box and lifted off the lid.

“It was Dad’s idea,” explained Tonks, “he knows you like Muggle music, so he thought he’d get you some classic films, I think they’re mostly musicals.”

There had to be at least twenty video tapes in this box, some were classic musicals such as West Side Story, The Sound of Music, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and Grease. There was also a couple of Disney films including Sleeping Beauty and Beauty and the Beast.

“Wow,” muttered Anne flicking through the box.

“It was Ted’s idea, but I picked them out,” said Remus, “I tried to pick the ones I thought you’d like.”

“I think there’s one more present left here,” said Sirius fishing one last box out of the pile.

“It says it is for you Anne,” said Sirius as he passed her the box.

Anne lifted the note that was attached to the small box.

“Dear Anne,

Sorry we had to borrow your what according to Lisa is called a ‘Walk Man.’ Merlin, the names these Muggles seem to come up with!

We’ve been umm… improving it for you. It no longer needs you to put the tapes in, you tap the Walk Man with your wand and think about which song or album you want to hear.

We’ve transferred every record we could find in the Common Room onto here, all of yours (yes even Monty Python!) and then we asked around to borrow everyone else’s, its been a hell of a lot of work. If you want, we can show you how to add extra songs after the holidays.

We’ve also enchanted it so that you don’t have to wear those weird things over your ears, I think Lisa said they were ‘Headfones?’ Anyway you can still wear the Headfones if you want to listen on your own, but if you the take the Headfones out you can play the music out loud.

We hope you have a very Merry Christmas,

Terry and Michael.

“I can’t believe they nicked your bloody WalkMan,” said Harry as he read the letter whilst Anne unwrapped the box.

Her Walkman looked exactly like it used to the headphones were even still plugged in, she tapped the WalkMan and thought about The Seekers.

She pulled on her headphones and it had just started playing I’ll Never Find Another You.

“I don’t believe it,” said Anne pulling off her headphones, “it bloody works!”

They had Christmas lunch and then they all watched one of Anne’s new films on the television.

“So which one do you want?” asked Sirius as they riffled through the box.

“This one’s a good one,” said Remus pulling out The Sound of Music.

“You guys might not like it though,” he chuckled.

“Bedknobs and Broomsticks?” suggested Tonks vaguely remembering watching at her Gran’s when she was a kid.

They watched Bedknobs and Broomsticks and then Anne wanted to watch Sleeping Beauty, Sirius and Harry went out when she put the second film on. Both films were brilliant, and Anne couldn’t wait to watch all the others in the box.

A few days after Christmas, Irwin was invited around to stay the night, they set up the television and video player in Anne’s bedroom again so they could have some privacy.

“Which one do you want to watch?” asked Irwin going through the tapes with her whilst Sirius made them some popcorn.

Anne checked her watch and saw it was already eight o’clock, but they didn’t have anything in the morning.

“This one’s meant to be good,” said Anne pulling out a video tape box.

“It’s a bit long though,” she muttered.

“West Side Story?” Irwin asked looking at the cover.

“From the back of the box I think it’s a version of Romeo and Juliet, but in 1950’s New York.”

“And that’s a musical?” asked Irwin.

“Well seeing as there are people dancing on the back then yes,” nodded Anne.

“Sounds good to me,” Irwin shrugged taking the tape out of the box and inserting it into the player.

Sirius came in with the popcorn and then left the room leaving them in peace. Irwin pulled the duvet and some of the pillow onto the floor, they leaned against the bed sitting on the floor propped up the pillows snuggling into each other under the duvet.

Irwin pressed play on the video tape.

The film started and they watched the Sharks and Jets dance around New York city. The songs were beautiful, Anne particularly liked how they had adapted the balcony scene between Tony and Maria, singing Tonight to each other over the fire escape.

At the end of the film, Anne gripped onto Irwin as Maria screamed at the gang members pointing the gun at people, wondering how many bullets were left so she had enough left to kill herself too.

When the Shark’s helped the members of the Jet gang to carry Tony’s corpse, Anne was sobbing hysterically. The gangs were finally helping each other, but not until Tony had been killed.

“You ok Annie?” said Irwin as he put an arm around her comfortingly turning off the television.

“It was so sad,” she sobbed.

“It was a version of Romeo and Juliet,” Irwin reminded her.

“Yeah but Maria had to live with on without Tony, at least in Romeo and Juliet they both die!”

“It was only a film,” he chuckled lightly, “its ok Annie!”

“I know,” she muttered smiling slightly.

Anne and Irwin put the duvet and pillows back on the bed and went to sleep.

The rest of the holiday was full of excitement, staying up until gone midnight on New Year’s Eve to watch the fireworks from the room of Grimmauld Place, Harry trying to teach Teddy how to fly on a toy broomstick. Anne was almost sorry that she had to go back to school but she was excited to see all her friends.


	14. Back from the Holidays

The day before they got the train back to school Remus took Anne and Harry to St. Mungo’s to visit Alice and Frank.

“Don’t you think this is just a bit weird,” said Harry as he tied up his shoelaces, “you know pretending to be mum and dad?”

“Look Harry, Neville is our friend,” said Anne as she pulled on her cloak, “he says they’ve been improving loads.”

“You two ready?” asked Remus, he hadn’t seen Alice and Frank properly in years, but he was going to take them in to St Mungo’s.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Harry grumbled.

“Come on Harry,” said Remus, “it won’t be that bad.”

They flued to St. Mungo’s and then headed up to the permanent resident’s ward. 

“Hello again Anne,” said the healer at the desk, “come for another visit?”

“I’ve brought Harry with me.”

Harry was looking clearly unimpressed and looking at anyone apart from the healer herself.

They walked over to the beds where Alice and Frank were waiting for them. Alice was leaning against the pillows under her blankets, Frank was sitting on top of his bed in his pyjamas reading a book on Herbology.

Remus seemed uncertain and stood in the background.

“Hi Alice, Frank,” said Anne beaming as she sat between the two beds.

“Lily!” exclaimed Alice as she sat down, “haven’t seen you in ages!”

“Hi Lily,” said Frank.

“I’ve brought James with me,” said Anne putting an arm around Harry.

“James!” exclaimed Frank, “and here was I thinking you’d forgotten all about me!”

“Hi Frank,” Harry said nervously sitting down next to Anne.

“What’s happened with your forehead James?” asked Alice brushing aside Harry’s fringe to show his scar.

“Oh, what this?” shrugged Harry, “motorbike accident with Sirius.”

“You two should learn to be more careful,” tutted Alice as she talked to Harry.

“You would have thought Remus could keep you under control,” she muttered.

“How is Remus?” asked Frank putting his book away.

Remus looked over from where he was standing only a few metres away, they didn’t even recognise him.

“He’s great,” beamed Anne, “he’s looking after the twins for us today.” 

“Have you seen Nev recently?” asked Frank.

“Yes he’s fine,” reassured Anne, “we’ve been taking good care of him for you.”

“Yes well hopefully, I’ll be able to go home and look after him myself before long,” beamed Frank.

“I just wish I knew where Alice was,” he muttered.

“That’s a nice book, what’s it on?” she asked looking at the book he had been reading before they came in.

“It’s a herbology book,” he said proudly, “a nice young man dropped it off for me yesterday, I always used to like a good book.”

“We should get going,” said Remus gently.

“Hello,” said Frank noticing Remus for the first time, “do I know you?”

Remus bit his lip slightly, trying to hold back his tears.

“We’ll come back another time,” said Anne getting up and leaving with Harry and Remus.

“Bye Lily, James,” smiled Alice.

“Please bring some more books next time,” said Frank as they left.

“They didn’t even recognise me,” said Remus a quiver in his voice as they left the ward.

“I know Remus,” said Anne giving him a hug, “we’re going to sort this out though I promise.”

“They don’t even recognise each other, or Nev” Harry pointed out.

“It’s almost as if,” said Remus, “they’re stuck at the moment when they were tortured, they recognise you two because you look like Lily and James.”

The next day Remus and Sirius walked them to platform nine and three quarters. 

“Bye bye little Teddy,” said Anne giving Teddy a cuddle as they stood on the platform.

“Don’t you forget your godfather,” said Harry taking Teddy from Anne to give him a cuddle.

“I’m going to miss you, see sweetheart,” said Remus.

“Take good care of Teddy and Dora for me,” sobbed Anne, she always hated going back to school because she had to leave her family behind.

“I’ll see you at Easter sweetheart,” he said letting her out of the hug.

“Go on kiddo get going,” chuckled Sirius, “the trains going to try leaving without you.”

Anne found a compartment where Irwin, Luna, and Neville were already sitting.

“Hey Annie, happy new year,” said Irwin giving her a kiss as she sat down next to him.

“I only saw you yesterday afternoon,” she chuckled.

“Hi Anne,” said Neville, “had a good holiday?”

“Yeah we went into St Mungo’s yesterday,” said Anne.

“They’re doing great aren’t they?” beamed Neville.

“They still don’t know who I am really but they’re talking, Dad’s even started reading books.”

“I know Nev,” smiled Anne.  
“Given time they might get even better,” she said giving him a knowing smile.

“You had a good Christmas Luna?” asked Irwin.

“Oh yes,” she beamed, “Daddy asked me to help him research the Diadem of Ravenclaw, he wants to try and replicate it.”

Anne tried to hide a smile, she knew exactly where the Diadem of Ravenclaw was, in her bedroom back at Grimmauld place.

The train pulled into Hogsmeade and they all headed into the great hall to get some food.

Anne had some chicken casserole and mashed potatoes with green beans.

After dinner it was the last night before classes started up again.

Anne walked up to Michael and Terry in the Common Room who were setting up for music hour.

“Hi guys, thanks for the Christmas present, its great,” she beamed.

“You are most sincerely welcome,” nodded Michael.

“But if you two ever ‘borrow’ my things without asking again, you’ll get what’s coming to you.”

“Yeah a kneazle to the face,” chortled Mandy.

“Fair enough,” muttered Terry before getting up to stand on a chair.

“Hey hey my fellow Claws!” called Michael down his microphone.

“Today is going to be the first of our themed nights, we are going to be doing classic songs from the sixties,” said Terry as he put on the first album.

“Ok gang, first up we’ve got The Twist by Chubby Checker,” announced Michael.

“If you guys don’t know how to do it just watch our resident dancing couple,” chuckled Terry, as Anne and Irwin started twisting around the floor.

The Twist was swiftly followed by other classics such as Dancing in the Street, and Twist and Shout.

“You would never have thought,” chuckled Anthony at the end of music hour, “that such a quiet girl, would be such an enthusiastic dancer!”

“Music gives me life Anthony,” said Anne.

“I thought I gave you life,” sulked Irwin.

“Yes, but music helps,” she chuckled.

“Hey Michael!” called Anthony, “you ready for me to beat you at chess again?”

“You never know,” said Michael, “I might actually win this time!”

Anne and Irwin headed up to the boy’s dorm with Michael and Anthony.

Anthony set up his chessboard on his bed and Michael sat down cross-legged opposite him.

Anne put her headphones and listened to some Beatles songs, she closed her eyes and settled into the pillows on Irwin’s bed.

She fell asleep within a few moments and had the same dream about the snake fighting the phoenix.


	15. The Phoenix and The Snake

Term started up and apparition classes started, unsurprisingly to everyone in the room Anne managed to apparate first time.

A few weeks into February, and Anne was sat at her desk doing her charms essay, she had her Walkman turned on, one of the other ‘improvements’ that Michael and Terry had made, meant that it no longer needed the batteries to be replaced.

She was halfway through a Chris de Burgh song when Brenda came over to talk to her.

“Hey Anne,” she beamed, “I’ve got a note for you.”

She fished in her satchel and passed Anne a tightly furled up scroll.

Anne unfolded it.

Miss Potter,

Meet me in my office at six o’clock tomorrow evening,

Professor Dumbledore.

“Thanks Brenda,” Anne beamed before getting back on with her essay, eight NEWTs meant one hell of a lot of homework.

When she had finally finished off her Charms, Herbology and History of Magic essays, Anne headed up to bed.

Irwin was staying up late playing truth or dare with Berty Botts Every Flavour Beans, with Lisa Mandy and Padma.

Anne snuggled under the duvet and managed to get to sleep.

The huge snake and the phoenix were fighting again, the snake killed the phoenix and slithered away, but then the phoenix rose from the ashes.

She woke up and Irwin had his arm around her in his sleep.

“You alright?” he muttered drowsily, “you were shaking.”

“I’m fine,” she assured him.

Irwin settled back down and fell asleep within moments, Anne couldn’t get to sleep though, she felt that something was wrong, but she just couldn’t tell what.

She got up much earlier than usual and got dressed in her school robes, she went to go read in front of the fire for a few hours.

“You had me worried Annie,” said Irwin sitting down next to her.

Anne had her knees pulled into her chest and was watching the flames crackle in the fireplace.

“There something wrong Annie?” asked Irwin pulling her in close.

“I’m fine,” she muttered.

She closed her eyes and let the warmth of the fire wash over her for a while before the eventually had to head down for breakfast.

They were doing tarot reading in Divination that day and Anne shuffled through the cards. The cards were trying to tell her that she shouldn’t believe what she sees at first sight, and that a friend was in danger.

Nice to have a warning, she thought.

She went down to dinner and picked at her pasta, pushing it around her plate with her fork.

“Eat Annie, you’ve been working too hard again,” said Irwin chuckling slightly.

“I’m not hungry,” she muttered pushing her plate away.

“Look Annie I don’t know what’s wrong with you today,” grumbled Irwin, “you’re not eating, and you hardly slept last night.”

“I don’t know,” she sighed, “I think I’m just worried about the meeting with Dumbledore, every time we see him, he’s looking even worse.”

“I’m sorry I snapped Annie,” said Irwin kissing her on the top of the head, “why don’t you go see what Dumbledore wants and I’ll see you later alright?”

Anne gave Irwin a quick hug before heading up to Dumbledore’s office, she already knew the password for that month, sugar mice.

“Best get this over with,” she muttered turning the corner to reach the corridor of Dumbledore’s office.

She noticed that the staircase was already down without her having given the password, maybe Harry was already there?

She headed up the staircase and opened the door to Dumbledore’s office.

“Sorry I’m late sir,” she said entering the office and closing the door behind her.

But then Anne turned around, Professor Dumbledore was slumped over his desk, holding what looked like several of Fawkes’ phoenix feathers in his hand.

“Sir,” Anne muttered walking over to his desk to wake him up, “you said you wanted to see me.”

She picked up the phoenix feathers curiously and put them in her pocket. 

She tried waking him up gently, but he didn’t move, she tried checking for a pulse but there didn’t seem to be one.

“No no no,” she muttered double checking his pulse.

She tried shaking him again.

“Wake up!” she screamed.

But Dumbledore still didn’t move.

She ran down from the office and started screaming frantically running through the corridors.

“Help!!” she screamed running down the corridor, “Help!!!!”

“Calm down Miss Potter,” said Professor Flitwick who had come to try and find out what was the source of all the commotion.

“What’s the problem,” he asked gently.

“Professor Dumbledore,” she stuttered.

Flitwick took hold of Anne’s hand and they both walked back to Dumbledore’s office together.

Anne stood in the doorway nervously whilst Flitwick checked on Dumbledore hoping that she was wrong. 

“I’m afraid Professor Dumbledore is dead Anne,” said Flitwick solemnly.

“No no no,” she stuttered, “he can’t be.”

“I’m going to take you to the Hospital Wing,” said Flitwick gently taking hold of Anne’s hand.

Anne was still stuttering frantically when they got to the Hospital Wing.

“Filius what is going on here?” said Madam Pomfrey.

“Anne has had a shock,” said Flitwick as he sat her down on one of the beds, “she has just found the Headmaster dead in his office.”

“Albus is dead?” asked Pomfrey choking back a sob.

“I’m afraid so Poppy,” nodded Flitwick, “it’s not surprising he’s not been looking well for a while.”

“But still, he can’t be dead,” she sobbed, “not Albus!”

“I have to go tell the rest of the staff,” said Flitwick shaking his head.

Anne was still stuttering nervously; she just couldn’t believe that Dumbledore was dead. She was shaking were she was sitting.

Pomfrey went to go and find a calming draught for Anne.

“I need you to take this for me,” said Pomfrey, “it will make you feel better, I promise.”

Anne was still shaking nervously and stuttering.

“No no no,” she was muttering under her breath.

“I’ll just be a moment,” Pomfrey sighed.

She sent one of the Ravenclaw students who was hanging around in the entrance hall off to go and find Irwin.

“Annie!” Irwin called breathlessly sprinting into the Hospital Wing a few minutes later.

“Annie,” he sobbed pulling her in close.

“What happened?” asked Irwin looking over to Madam Pomfrey.

“Anne found the Headmaster dead in his office, Professor Flitwick is telling the rest of the staff, the whole school will know before long.”

“Oh Annie,” said Irwin kissing her lightly on the top of the head, “you’re going to be ok now.”

Anne’s shaking and stuttering slowed down slightly as Irwin comforted her.

“It’s ok Annie, I’m here,” he assured her.

Madam Pomfrey passed him the vial of calming draught and Irwin pulled some chocolate out of his pocket.

“Annie, can you hear me?” asked Irwin gently.

Anne nodded slightly, still shaking.

“I need you to take this for me,” he said passing her the vial of potion, and a piece of chocolate.

Anne gulped and took a deep breath before downing the potion in one.

“The chocolate should help with the taste,” he pointed out indicating the piece of chocolate.

“Thanks,” she muttered having eaten the chocolate.

“I should have believed you,” said Irwin, “you told me you knew there was something wrong.”

Irwin helped Anne into bed, and he sat down on the bed next to her.

“I just can’t believe he’s gone,” said Irwin shaking his head once he had got Anne settled into bed properly.

“Neither can I,” said Pomfrey as she passed them both a cup of tea.

Irwin took a sip from his tea and choked slightly.

“What’s in this?” he choked.

“A drop of firewhisky,” explained Pomfrey, “for the shock.”

“I’ll stick to the chocolate thanks,” muttered Irwin indicating the bar of chocolate in his robes pocket as he broke off a large piece.

After a while there was a knock on the Hospital Wing door.

Harry poked his head around the door.

“Professor McGonagall told me Anne was in here,” he said quietly.

“What’s going on Harry?” asked Irwin as Harry came over to Anne’s bed.

“The heads of houses have been going around telling us all that Dumbledore’s dead, McGonagall’s calling the Ministry,” Harry sighed collapsing into a chair.

“I need go get Anne’s mirror,” Irwin sighed, “the Order need to know what’s happened.”

Harry nodded slightly from where he was sitting.

Irwin got up from the bed and headed up to the Common Room quickly.

Harry took hold of Anne’s hand as Irwin left.

“We knew this was coming Sis,” Harry muttered.

“Remus,” Anne whispered.

“It’s ok Annie,” Harry said gripping her hand, “Irwin’s getting the mirror, you’re going to be ok.”

Anne just stared at the ceiling; she had gone into shock.

Harry tried to persuade her to drink some hot blackcurrant and apple squash which sometimes made her feel a bit better.

Irwin came rushing back in a few minutes later.

“They’re coming,” he gasped breathlessly having run both ways.

“I managed to get Sirius on the mirror,” he gasped as he sat back down on the bed next to Anne, “he Remus and Dora are on their way.”

“Teddy,” muttered Anne still looking at the ceiling.

“Teddy’s fine Annie,” said Irwin pulling her in close, “he’s with Julian.”

“Where is she?” said Remus bursting in, tears streaming down his face.

“Anne,” he sobbed sitting down by the bed next to her.

“She’s fine Remus,” said Tonks, “she’s not hurt.”

“Are you ok kiddo?” asked Sirius looking from Harry to Anne.

Harry nodded, and Sirius sat down next to him and put his arm around him.

“I should go,” muttered Irwin getting off the bed, and heading back to the Common Room. He didn’t want to intrude on this family moment.

Remus sat down next to her on the bed once Irwin had got up.

“Come here poppet,” he said gently, holding his arms out for her.

Anne finally stopped staring at the ceiling and fell into Remus’ arms sobbing.

“shh shh shh,” he muttered stroking her hair, “it’s alright I’m here now.”

“He’s really dead?” asked Tonks.

“Flitwick checked,” sobbed Anne, “there was no pulse.”

“What I would like to know,” said Snape who had come to join them and was leaning casually against the window frame, “is what you were doing there in the first place Miss Potter?”

“What’s it got to with you Severus?” growled Sirius.

“Leave him Sirius,” muttered Tonks.

“This is Order business, our leader has just died,” explained Snape.

“I got a letter,” she explained still sobbing, “it told me to go see him tonight.”

“Have you still got the letter sweetheart?” asked Remus.

Anne fished in her pocket and pulled out the piece of parchment and handed it to Remus.

“It’s very abrupt,” muttered Remus, “doesn’t even call you Anne.”

“There’s something else,” she stuttered, “I don’t think Dumbledore just died, I think he was murdered.”

“What?” Sirius whispered.

Snape didn’t seem particularly surprised.

“Could I have a look at that letter Lupin?”

Remus passed the piece of parchment to Snape.

“Hmmm,” muttered Snape scanning the parchment.

“You’re right Lupin, it is very abrupt.”

Snape paused for a moment.

“This letter isn’t from Dumbledore, it’s a copy, the handwriting is very similar but Albus didn’t write this.”

“So, are you trying to say that whoever killed Dumbledore wanted us to find the body?” asked Tonks.

“More specifically they wanted Anne to find the body,” said Snape.

“Is there anything else sweetheart?” asked Snape.

“Well,” Anne stammered thinking for a moment, “the staircase was already down when I arrived, at first I thought it was because Harry was already there.”

“Anything else kiddo?” asked Sirius.

“He was holding these,” said Anne passing Sirius the feathers from her robe pocket.

“Phoenix feathers,” muttered Sirius.

“Why phoenix feathers?” asked Tonks.

“Maybe it was someone from within the Order?” said Sirius.

“Or maybe,” said Snape, “it was someone working for the Dark Lord, who wanted to get rid of Dumbledore and attempt to create discord from within the Order at the same time?”

“What I don’t understand is why somebody would bother killing him anyway?” asked Harry who was confused, “he only had a few months left anyway.”

“Most people didn’t know that Potter,” said Snape.

“But you did, you’re the one who was making him the potions, you said he had till June,” said Harry still confused.

“Maybe you’d had enough of serving two masters Snivellus, maybe you wanted to do him in,” said Sirius pulling his wand out on Snape.

Snape got up from where he had been leaning against the windowsill and got out his wand to defend himself.

“How dare you!” shouted Snape.

“Stop!” yelled Remus standing between them, “both of you stop right now!”

“This is exactly what they wanted, us to start fighting amongst ourselves, Albus hasn’t even been dead a few hours, both of you sit down and put your wands away now!!” 

Snape and Sirius both sat back down, they were both glaring at each other but didn’t dare pull their wands back out.

“Anne,” asked Tonks as Remus sat back down, “is there anything else?”

Anne started pulling at the end of one of her plaits.

“Any strange dreams?” asked Snape almost smirking.

“A snake fighting with a phoenix,” she nodded, “the snake won and then ran off, and then the phoenix rose from the ashes.”

“Is that all?” asked Remus.

“Yeah,” Anne nodded.

“So the phoenix is Dumbledore,” muttered Sirius.

“But who’s the snake?” asked Harry.

“Last time the snake was Lucius Malfoy,” Anne said thinking back.

“Draco!” exclaimed Harry.

“For Merlin’s sake Harry,” sighed Remus, “he’s sixteen.”

“Actually,” drawled Snape, “Potter’s right, it probably was Draco.”

“What?” muttered Tonks.

Harry’s eyes were full of triumph, and Remus and Sirius’ mouths were open with shock.

“The Dark Lord wanted Albus dead. He wanted Draco to do it, I was supposed to be helping him.”

“I knew it!” screamed Sirius getting back up again.

“Use your brain Black,” whispered Snape in a barley audible tone, “if I had actually helped Draco do you think I would be here now telling you his whole plan, or running to the Dark Lord and telling you that Albus is dead?”

“This doesn’t mean I like you,” growled Sirius sitting back down yet again.

“I never expected you too,” smirked Snape playing with his wand.

“Look,” said Remus, “we’ve all had a hard night, we need to get some sleep.”

“I need to go check on my students,” said Snape getting up from leaning against the window.

“Do you want us to stay here tonight?” asked Sirius once Snape had gone.

“I think we all need to stick together right now,” said Tonks reaching for Remus’ hand.

Remus pulled Anne in slightly closer and stroked her hair which was starting to come undone from her plaits.

“You ok Annie?”

“What’s going to happen to us?”

“What are you talking about sweetheart?”

“Well Dumbledore’s gone, Voldemort could just come bursting through the door if he felt like it,” Harry pointed out whilst Anne sobbed into Remus’ chest.

“Not on my bloody watch,” growled Sirius fingering his wand in his pocket.

“We don’t need to worry about any of that now,” said Remus holding her close, “all we need to worry about is you getting some sleep.”

“Speaking of which,” said Remus picking up a vial of Dreamless Sleep Pomfrey had left behind before she had given them some privacy to talk.

“Drink,” he said firmly.

Anne grimaced slightly and downed the potion before snuggling back in under the bedsheets.

“Poor kid,” muttered Sirius once Anne and Harry had drifted off to sleep, Harry was resting his head on Sirius’ shoulder.

“It would have been difficult enough for anyone to walk in and find him dead like that,” agreed Tonks, “but someone as sensitive as Annie.”

Remus was sat on the bed leaning against the headboard, and Anne had fallen asleep her head in Remus lap. 

Remus tucked her in more tightly under the bedsheets and pushed a lock of hair off of her face.

“Poppy,” whispered Sirius when Pomfrey came back in, “what’s going on?”

“Minerva has been made Headmistress on a temporary basis, the ministry has been round, they’re keeping the school open as he died a natural death.”

“What about the funeral?” asked Remus.

“It’s in a few days, they’re holding it at the school.”

“Do any of you need anything?” 

“No,” said Tonks, “we’re fine.”

Sirius and Tonks eventually managed to get some sleep under some spare blankets that Pomfrey had brought over.

Remus wasn’t even slightly tired, he couldn’t even imagine sleeping right now, he was too busy worrying about the twins, they had been through so much, far more than most people in the Order, and they weren’t even of age yet.


	16. The Funeral

In the morning, Sirius, Remus and Tonks had to go back home. Teddy needed looking after, and they still needed to contact the rest of the Order about Dumbledore’s death.

Classes had been cancelled for the days leading up to the funeral. Only about six people in the world knew that Dumbledore hadn’t died from natural causes, and none of them had the motive to let everyone else know any the wiser. As Dumbledore had died from natural causes, the Ministry were allowing the school to be kept open.

A week after the death of Dumbledore then there was a huge funeral, people had been arriving in Hogsmeade all week wanting to pay their last respects.

Anne woke up on the day of the funeral, she hadn’t slept much since she had discovered Dumbledore dead at his desk. The most sleep she had had all week was when Remus had made her take some dreamless sleep on the night of the death.

Irwin had tried helping her sleep but her nightmares were even more frequent and usually included Dumbledore’s dead body.

She stole out of bed at five o’clock in the morning, trying not to wake up Irwin who was sleeping in the bed next to her.

Anne grabbed a set of clean school robes, a clean towel and her wash robes and headed off to the Prefects bathroom. One bath and hair wash, Anne felt much better and more refreshed, she pulled on her uniform including her jumper and grey wool tights, it was going be to a cold day today and the funeral was going to be outside.

She cast a hair drying charm on her hair and headed back to the dorm and then plaited her waist length into one long plait all the way down her back, it was still only a quarter to six and Irwin was still fast asleep.

“Come here Di,” muttered Anne softly making space for her cat.

Anne pulled her knees into her chest and Diana lay down between Anne and Irwin on the bed, Diana lay her of her little white socks out all over the bed as she fell asleep.

Anne watched out the window as the sun slowly rose in the sky, it had been snowing again and the world outside was like a white blanket had been thrown over it.

“Annie?” whispered Irwin, “you awake?”

“Hmmm,” she muttered staring out the window.

“Its not even seven o’clock yet and you’re fully dressed,” he yawned.

“You do know the funeral’s not until eleven o’clock?”

Anne nodded slightly not looking away from the window.

“I’d best go get up,” he whispered not wanting to wake up the other three girls in the dorm.

“I love you Annie,” he muttered kissing her on top of the head.

Anne picked a book up from her bedside table and headed down to the Common Room to head sitting in front of the fire.

She found herself picking up an old familiar and picked up her collected works of Shakespeare and opened it to a random section. She was half way through reading Troius and Cressida when she noticed she wasn’t the only person up this early.

“Hi Anne,” muttered Morgana, not wanting to disturb Anne from her book.

“Morning Morgana, whats up?” asked Anne.

“Do you know if Julian’s coming today?” asked Morgana.

“Of course, he’s in the Order of course he’s coming.”

“I haven’t seen him in nearly three years,” she mumbled pulling at a strand of her dark hair.

“Are your family coming?” 

“No,” said Morgana shaking her head frantically, “Dad hated Dumbledore, I think he’s actually glad that he’s dead.”

“Oh, don’t think I feel the same way!” Morgana said quickly, “I just know that Dad always used to complain about him and how much better off the school would be without him.”

“Anne,” said Morgana nervously, “is there going to be another war?”

“Its already started,” said Anne, “it started nearly two years ago with the death of Cedric Diggory, people have only just started to realise it since last June though.”

“I mean like a proper war, with people dying and people taking sides.”

“People already have died,” Anne pointed out, “Emmeline Vance, Cedric, Amelia Bones, that’s just a few, countless muggles.”

“Why are asking me all this?”

“I’m worried that my Dad’s not got the same values as Julian,” she muttered.

“Are you trying to tell me that you think your Dad is a supporter of You Know Who?” breathed Anne.

“Well he’s certainly not on the other side,” whispered Morgana after checking no one else was in the room, “and he’s always had a lot of fishy contacts.”

“What I’m trying to ask is do you think You Know Who is going to take over?”

“Well it’s more of a question of when than if now that Dumbledore’s dead,” Anne sighed.

“I thought as much,” nodded Morgana.

“You two ok?” asked Irwin coming down the stairs in a clean pair of robes.

“Fine,” beamed Anne, “just girl talk.”

“Uggh,” groaned Irwin, “I’m glad I missed that then.”

Most people went down for a late breakfast and then headed out to the grounds opposite the lake for the funeral. It was freezing cold as it was mid-February and it had snowed the night before so the ground was covered in snow.

Anthony and Anne had to help sort out the younger students, making sure their ties were done up properly and trying to get them to behave as much they possibly could. They need a thousand chairs just for the students but there must have been an extra five hundred chairs out by the great lake.

All the Weasleys including Fleur had come to pay their respects to Dumbledore. Towards the front of the crowd, Remus, Sirius, and Julian were all sat wearing dark dress robes, Tonks had her natural hair colour in a plait was wearing a black dress and was holding baby Teddy who was now nearly one. The Scamanders had also come even Averett and Aislyyn

Once her and Anthony had got all the first and second years settled then they went to go sit with Irwin and Persephone who had been saving them seats.

“You ok Annie?” whispered Irwin as she sat down.

Anne nodded uncertainly and took hold of Irwin’s hand.

Irwin clenched Anne’s hand in such a firm grip when the delegation of witches and wizards from the ministry arrived. Minister Scrimgeour himself was there along with Dolores Umbridge who was not today wearing her usual pink, and the missing Weasley, Percy who was clearly trying to look at anyone apart from where his family were sat.

The funeral itself was fairly normal apart from when the centaurs paid their last respects by aiming flaming arrows at Dumbledores corpse which burst into flames and magically transformed into a white coffin.

“Come on Annie,” muttered Irwin at the end of the funeral, “its freezing let’s get you inside.”

“How you holding up?” asked Remus coming over to talk to them with Teddy bundled up in his cloak.

“I’m ok,” muttered Anne pulling at the end of her plait before heading back inside.

Irwin chased after her and Remus was left standing watching them fade into the distance as they ran inside.


	17. What Next?

February slowly drifted into March; Hogwarts wasn’t quite the same without Dumbledore, but life went on. People went to class and Quidditch practise earned house points and got given detentions. One of the good things that had actually come out of Dumbledore’s death was that Slughorn took this as his cue to stop throwing his little parties.

The day before they all were going home for the Easter holidays, Irwin insisted that Anne for once put away her textbooks. After Dumbledores funeral she had if possible, thrown herself even further into her work.

“Ok no work,” insisted Irwin as they finished their last lesson of the term.

“I want to get started on that History essay,” she sighed.

“Oh no you don’t,” he chuckled, “it’s your birthday present to me.”

Anne covered her mouth in shock.

“Oh Merlin its your birthday,” she muttered, “I completely forgot.”

“That’s alright you’ve been through a lot,” Irwin shrugged.

Anne shook her head as she fished around in her bag and passed him a wrapped parcel.

“Happy birthday Irwin,” Anne smiled.

“It’s that new Herbology book you wanted,” she told him as he unwrapped it, “sorry it’s not much.”

“I love you Annie,” Irwin beamed as he pulled her in for a long kiss.

“Now you ready to celebrate my birthday?” he grinned.

“Oh alright,” Anne gave in, she had three weeks to do her holiday homework.

They reached the Room of Requirement which had changed into the sitting room again, Anne and Irwin had spent many long afternoons and evenings in this version of the room now, sometimes they would just read, other times they would dance around the floor, occasionally they would just make out on the sofa.

There were several dishes on the dinner table that had appeared today. There was a small lasagne for two people, freshly baked garlic bread and a bowl of green salad to have on the side.

They sat down and Irwin dished out the food.

“This is delicious,” moaned Anne as she ate the lasagne, “you’ve been in touch with Kreacher again haven’t you?”

“Guilty as charged,” nodded Irwin.

Then came the pudding, fresh strawberries with vanilla ice cream.

“Strange question,” asked Anne as they finished the pudding, “why are we having my favourite meal on your birthday?”

“That is a good question,” said Irwin.

“Ok here goes,” he muttered, “we’ve been through a lot together the last six years, and you’ve had a rough few months.”

Anne nodded.

“I’ve got a feeling that you and Harry won’t be coming back to school next year,” he said giving her a knowing smile.

Anne blushed slightly, Harry and she knew that by the time that September came Voldemort would have probably taken over the Ministry and the school.

“Anyway, I love you very much Annie my beautiful goddess,” he said as he fished in the pocket of his robes.

“I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to defeat Tom, it might take you one year, it might take you fifty years.”

“Although of course, I’d rather it was a bit closer to one than fifty,” he laughed nervously.

“So,” said Irwin as he got up from his chair and knelt down next to her, “I’m willing to wait as long as you need me to but I can’t imagine a future when I’m not with you.”

Anne stared at Irwin she knew what he was going to ask.

“Anne Lily Potter, will you marry me?” he asked pulling a small box out of his pocket, it was a plain gold band.

Anne stared at him for a moment and Irwin looked straight back into his eyes, desperate for an answer.

“I can’t imagine my future without you either,” she muttered.

“Yes of course I’ll marry you!”

Irwin’s mouth fell open slightly as if he was surprised that she had actually said yes.

Irwin placed the ring on the correct finger of Anne’s left hand.

“Perfect fit,” he breathed.

Irwin pulled Anne in for a deep kiss and they eventually ended up making out on the sofa.

“We have to pack,” Anne pointed out when they broke apart for a moment.

“Oh bugger,” he muttered, “I wanted to stay here forever.”

“Come on,” she chuckled as they headed back to the Common Room.

When they got back to Ravenclaw Tower, Anne noticed that Anthony and Persephone were watching them nervously waiting to find out what Anne’s reaction had been. Persephone was trying to scan Anne’s hand for a ring.

“She said yes?” asked Persephone.

“Well of course she said yes,” said Anthony those two are made for each other.

“Michael!” Anthony called, “we’ve got an announcement to make!”

“Musical Extravaganza hour doesn’t start for another fifteen minutes,” Michael pointed out.

“I think this is worth it,” muttered Irwin, Anne smiled nervously as she showed Michael and Terry the ring.

“Anthony,” said Michael “start moving the tables.”

“Hey hey my fellow Claws!” called Terry down the microphone.

“We’re starting a little bit early tonight,” said Michael as the other finished moving the furniture and Michael and Terry stood on their chairs.

“There is an announcement to be made,” said Terry.

“Anne and Irwin have just got engaged,” finished Michael.

They put on The Beatles; All You Need Is Love.

Anne and Irwin danced around for an hour, but they had even bigger smiles plastered on their faces than usual.

“What I want to know,” said Lisa as they packed their bags for the next day, “is how you managed to get a ring?”

“It was my Mums engagement ring,” Irwin shrugged as he helped Anne pack some books away.

“You did ask Remus and Sirius right?” asked Anne stopping in the middle of folding away a pair of jeans.

“Oh yeah obviously,” Irwin nodded.

“Thank Merlin for that,” muttered Anthony.

The next day they all got the train back home to London. Anne didn’t usually bother going home for Christmas, she was usually too busy studying for the exams, this year for some reason Anne didn’t seem to care as much as she usually did, she knew the curriculum back to front for all her subjects. This year she wanted to go home to spend the few weeks with her family.

Sirius and Remus were waiting for them at the platform with Teddy.

“Hi sweetheart,” said Remus as he took her trunk

“Aren’t you getting big,” said Anne as she took Teddy out of his pram.

“Hey give me godson,” protested Harry.

“Oh alright,” said Anne as she passed Teddy to Harry.

Sirius and Remus carried the two trunks whilst Harry pushed Teddy’s pram back to the house.

“So, you and Irwin eh?” asked Sirius.

“You sound surprised,” muttered Remus, “I’ve seen this coming for years.”

“Yes, but not until they’re older,” said Sirius, “she’s not even of age.”

“Look Sirius,” said Anne firmly, “nothing is going to happen until we’ve finished dealing with Tom.”

“Oh alright,” said Sirius finally giving in to the fact that someday in the future they were going to have to give their little girl away.

“Hows Tonks?” asked Harry.

“She’s good, the Ministrys keeping her busy,” said Remus.

“The latest breakout from Azkaban hasn’t helped matters much,” growled Sirius.

“Who got out this time?” asked Harry.

“You guys aren’t really meant to know this, but the Lestrange brothers and Lucius Malfoy are free again.”

“What a surprise,” grimaced Harry.

“I thought the whole point of Azkaban was that you couldn’t escape,” said Anne, “yet the Lestrange brothers and Malfoy have escaped twice now.”

“Yes well if you see a swish of a curtain of bright blonde hair from around the corner let me know and we’ll all get our wands out,” said Sirius.

“This is no laughing matter Sirius,” whispered Remus, who was thankful that they had now made it back to the house.

The Easter holiday was unfortunately not as quiet as the Christmas holiday had been, only one day back from school and there was a mass meeting of everyone in or involved in the Order of the Phoenix.

There must have been at least sixty people there, every single member of the Order. There were several new members that needed signing on as well, Landon, Gwendoline, Rolf, and Irwin Scamander, Ron, and Charlie Weasley who had come in from Romania so he could help with the war effort and also Professor Flitwick.

They were having to have a full meeting because they needed to elect a new leader because Dumbledore had died. They hadn’t been able to have this meeting any earlier the Hogwarts staff had been so busy dealing with the school since Dumbledore’s death that a full meeting just hadn’t been possible.

Irwin was very pleased that they were having the meeting when they were because he’d only been of age two days, if they had had it much earlier, he wouldn’t have been able to join.

Anne and Harry were invited to join the meeting because even though they weren’t of age for a few more months, it was obvious that come July they would be joining the Order come July, not to mention the fact that the meeting was being held in their own house.

There had never been so many members at one meeting or so many new members at one time. Everyone was clambering over each other in the sitting room to try and introduce themselves to the new members and catch up with each other properly.

“Can we have some quiet please,” called Remus.

No change.

“I’ll sort it Remus,” growled Moody.

“Sonorus,” he called.

“Will everyone please shut up and take your seats,” he bellowed through his wand. 

There was silence in the room, and everyone took their seats.

“We have a lot of things to discuss, you can all talk afterwards.”

There weren’t quite enough seats to go around, so Anne and Irwin leaned against the sofa that the Scamander’s were sat at. 

Several people leaned against the wall instead of sitting down. There was a large number of redheads lined up along the back wall, Bill and Charlie were stood next to each other and had been catching up, Fred and George were wearing their dragon leather jackets and had their arms crossed and finally Ron and Ginny. Ginny was only there as she was the only Weasley underage, but she wouldn’t get a vote in the new leader.

Mrs. Weasley was holding Teddy, she loved babies and there hadn’t been one in the Weasley family in so long. Fleur was looking longingly at the baby, she couldn’t wait until she and Bill had their own.

Mrs Longbottom was sat next to Hestia Jones, and Abeforth Dumbledore. Neville had come too as he was also going to join come his birthday in a few months, this meeting was just too important for anyone to miss.

“Ok well first thanks everyone for coming,” said Remus standing in the middle of the room so everyone could see him properly, “we have several new members today, and also a few prospective members who are thinking of joining when they come of age. 

“Now I know you’re going to try ask why do we need school children in the Order, but we need to try and protect the kids at Hogwarts, Voldemort’s going to have his people on the inside so should we.”

“We already have staff in the Order,” said Abeforth indicating Hagrid, McGonagall, Snape and now Flitwick.

“Yes I know but we need more,” sighed Remus.

“If the dark lord takes over, he’s going to put the Carrows in charge,” said Snape.

Several people started muttering and Irwin gripped firmly onto Anne’s hand.

“But before we discuss any of this,” said Remus over the muttering, “we need a new leader.”

There was silence.

“We have two candidates that have put themselves forward,” said Remus reading off a sheet of parchment, “Alistair Moody and Kingsley Shacklebot.”

“Before we begin do we have any last-minute nominations?”

Sirius shot his hand in the air.

“I know I’ll probably get beaten by the Aurors but it’s worth a shot, half the people we’re trying to hunt down are my relatives.”

“I’m not sure if that’s something to brag about Sirius,” muttered Andromeda.

“I’ll put you on the list anyway,” chuckled Remus shaking his head.

Julian also put his hand in the air.

“I know I’m still a bit new here,” he muttered, “but I think Remus should be leader.”

“I’m sorry Julian, but I wouldn’t know the first thing about leading a group this big,” stammered Remus.

“You’re doing it right now Lupin,” drawled Snape.

There was a smattering of chuckles from throughout the room.

“Ok any more nominations?”

No more hands were raised.

“Right then everyone close your eyes and raise your wands, when I reach the name you wish to vote for light your wand tip.”

“Alistair Moody?” 

Remus counted that about twenty wands had been lit.

“Kingsley Shacklebolt?”

Twenty wands again.

“Sirius Black?” 

Twelve wands were lit in the air.

“And Remus Lupin?”

Eight wands were lit.

“I’m afraid,” he chuckled nervously, “we have a tie.”

“Both Kingsley and Mad Eye have twenty votes.”

“I’m alright with sharing duties if you are,” said Moody to Kingsley who was sat near him.

“You’ve got a deal.”

They shook hands and walked up to the middle of the room where there was a round of applause.

Remus sat back down next to Tonks with Lyall and Julian.

“So the first thing we need to discuss is school next year,” said Kingsley, “Severus.”

“Thank you, Kingsley,” said Snape, “there is more than a small threat that by September, the Dark Lord shall have taken over the school, we need to do our best to try and protect the children.”

“We feel the best thing to do,” said Moody, “is to resurrect Dumbledore’s Army.”

“Not just defence lessons though,” agreed Kingsley, “but a version of the Order within Hogwarts, trying to help the other students where they can and stop anyone innocent from getting hurt.”

“This may not sound very important,” said Moody, “but it is vital!”

Anne raised her hand nervously unsure of whether she was allowed to voice an opinion at these meetings as she wasn’t actually a member yet.

“Yes Anne?” asked Kingsley.

“What about the Muggle Borns?”

“What about them?” asked Moody.

“Well Tom hates them, we need to try and protect them,” she pointed out.

“What do you think we’re trying to do?” asked Moody getting slightly annoyed at her.

“More than that, if Tom takes over the school for example, they won’t be able to go back there.”

“It would be a massacre,” muttered Kingsley.

“We’ll have to put some thought into that,” admitted Moody before they moved onto the next section of the meeting.

The meeting went on for another hour or so, they had to discuss things like the recent escape of the Lestranges, Carrows and Lucius Malfoy, and how the deatheaters were infiltrating the Ministry.

The meeting ended with the seven new members of the Order of the Phoenix coming up to the front of the room and taking the vow of secrecy and promising to protect their fellow wizards.

Only once all that had been done, did the food appear, Kreacher and Dobby were both carrying heaving platters of sandwiches which they were taking around the room, there was also a table on the edge of the room with yet more sandwiches.

“I’ve got to say Anne,” said Rolf, “that ring is gorgeous on you.”

“Thanks Rolf,” muttered Anne hiding behind a sheet of hair which was loose today.

The Scamander’s all had to introduce themselves around the room as they were new members, all members old and new were interested in looking at Anne’s engagement ring.

“Hello Professor,” beamed Anne at Professor Flitwick, who had just joined the Order.

“Is it always this chaotic in this house?” asked Flitwick.

“Not always quite this chaotic,” admitted Anne looking around at the sixty people in the house, “but it’s never really quiet.”


	18. Planning

The Summer term was always the shortest anyway, it wasn’t just exams that Anne and Harry were worried about though. They had to figure out how to destroy a Horcrux.

When they weren’t studying for exams Anne and Hermione were trawling through the Horcrux books that Hermione had managed to find.

“There’s the sword,” said Hermione.

“But we don’t where it is,” Anne sighed, “also it’s a bit big and obvious carrying a massive sword around.”

“Not many things can destroy them, only feindfyre and basilisk venom, Harry got lucky with the diary,” said Hermione checking one of the books.

“Both of those are really rare though,” said Hermione closing the book to try and find a book on feindfyre.

“Hermione,” said Anne as Hermione tried to find another book, “we know where to find a basilisk.”

“What are you talking about?” asked Hermione looking away from the bookcase.

“The Chamber of Secrets,” Anne whispered.

“It’s worth a shot,” nodded Hermione.

They ran up to the Gryffindor Tower to find Harry, he could find the entrance to the Chamber and could speak Parsletongue.

“This had better be important,” said Harry, “Ginny and I had a date planned.”

Harry and Ginny had not had as much time together as Harry would have liked recently because of Ginny’s OWLs, so they had been making the most of their available time together.

“We’ve figured out how to destroy the Horcrux,” whispered Anne.

“Ok yeah, that’s important,” said Harry as they headed for Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom.

“Heya Mrytle,” said Harry as they got to the girl’s bathroom.

“Hello Harry,” she simpered, “I haven’t seen you in ages.”

“Well yeah I’ve been a bit busy with schoolwork and you know a girlfriend.”

“Oh,” Myrtle sulked.

“How does the Chamber open Harry?” asked Hermione.

“It’s over here,” said Harry heading over to the sink with a snake engraved on it.

Harry made a strange hissing noise and the sinks spiralled out and made a tunnel down to the Chamber.

“I’ll go first,” said Harry lifting himself onto one of the sinks so that he could slide down the tunnel.

Hermione looked slightly uncertain but then shrugged as she slid down the tunnel.

Anne looked at the slippery slimy tunnel, she didn’t even know how far down it went.

“Here goes,” she muttered going down the tunnel.

Anne screamed at the top of her lungs as she slid down the steep passage. It felt like she had just fallen for miles.

“You ok Sis?” asked Harry as he helped her off the floor at the bottom of the tunnel.

“I think so,” she nodded as she tried to brush off the worst of the sludge and the slime.

“It’s down here,” said Harry as he led them up the passage to the Chamber.

The three of them lit their wands and walked towards the Chamber where the basilisk skeleton should be. 

Anne crunched on rat skulls as they headed towards the gate to the Chamber. Harry made another strange hissing noise and the barrier blocking the chamber opened.

“How did the four of you not die?” asked Hermione as she looked at the huge skeleton.

“If it wasn’t for Irwin we probably would have,” said Harry.

“He used Obscurus on the Basilisk and charged at it with Gryffindor’s sword.”

Harry and Hermione walked over to the skeleton and took an armful of fangs each.

“We’ve only got the cup to destroy,” said Harry, “but you never know when these things could come in handy.”

Now that they knew how to destroy the cup, all they had to do was find it, but Anne didn’t know how long that was going to take of course so there was still one more problem to sort out before the end of term.

On the last day of term, after everyone had finished their exams and were in the middle of packing, a very confused group of muggleborns gathered in one of the classroom’s.

The Order had been busy trying to plan what to do with the muggleborns and the obvious solution seemed to be putting them all into hiding so that Voldemort couldn’t find them.

The heads of the houses had told all the muggleborns to gather in a disused classroom on the fourth floor. There was about thirty of them throughout the school.

Harry, Anne, Neville, Ron Ginny and Irwin had come to the meeting too as somebody needed to explain what was going on to them.

They were all sitting on the desks and chatting away but none of them had any idea what they were doing there, apart from Hermione.

“Hi guys,” called Harry from the front of the room, “so you’ve all been asked to come here for something very important.”

“So,” Harry sighed, he didn’t know how he was going to say this, “Voldemort is back obviously, and Dumbledore is dead.”

There was less muttering than usual at the sound of Voldemort’s name because as they were muggleborns, they hadn’t grown up being scared of his name.

“Well Voldemort hates muggleborns.”

“We know all that,” said Dean from the back of the room, “get to the point!”

“The point is,” said Harry, “that it is more than likely that by September, Voldemort will have taken over the school.”

“Isn’t there something you lot can do about that?” asked Brenda Poteger, “you know the Order of the Phoenix and all that?”

“We’re doing our best,” said Harry, “but we need to be careful.”

“What we’re trying to say is that, you guys can’t come back to school in September,” said Irwin getting to the point.

“Can’t come back to school?” asked a first year Hufflepuff.

“Where else are we meant to go?” agreed a second year Gryffindor.

“You’re all going to have to go into hiding,” said Anne, “if you don’t you and your families are going to get hurt.”

“Hiding?” stuttered Justin.

“What if we don’t want to go?” asked a fifth year Ravenclaw with his arms crossed.

“Then you’ll end up dead or worse,” said Harry firmly.

“What’s worse than dead?” asked the Ravenclaw boy.

“Tortured into insanity,” said Neville.

The Ravenclaw boy shut up.

“So, what are we supposed to do?” asked Lisa gripping hold of Justin’s hand.

“Go home and pack and tell your families what’s going on,” said Harry, “you’ve got two weeks.”

“We need you all to write down your names and addresses on this piece of parchment,” he said showing them piece of parchment, “then we can know where to collect you all from in a few weeks.”

“What about our families?” asked a second year Ravenclaw girl.

“We are going to protect their houses, but you can’t stay with them,” said Harry, “it’s too much of a risk.”

“Where are we going to be staying?” asked Dean.

“In safe houses with the Order,” said Anne, “you’re going to be very well protected.”

The muggleborns all went up to the front of the room to write down their names and addresses. Some of them seemed more than slightly scared.

“You’re going to be ok,” Anne assured a first-year girl who seemed on the verge of tears, “I promise.”

“I’m scared,” she sobbed.

“I know sweetheart,” said Anne pulling her in for a hug, “we all are.”

The next day Anne went home on the train in a compartment with Harry, Ginny, Irwin, Ron and Hermione. It was going to be a very long year, they had a lot of work to do.


End file.
